


All that's best of dark and bright

by coffeestainsandcashmere



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU feel, Angst, Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Former Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating will probably go up too, Slow Burn, Soft Draco, Soft Theo, graphic violence tag is just a warning for later when there are memories of the war, i just stuck it at mature for now, it's not a gory tale at all, minor hand kink too i guess, slight au i guess, tags to be updated, theo wears reading glasses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 90,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24734746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeestainsandcashmere/pseuds/coffeestainsandcashmere
Summary: Hermione returns to Hogwarts for her 'eighth' year without Harry and Ron, with the horrors of the war still fresh in her mind, but determined to start anew. Malfoy seems subdued, altered by the events of the past year or so, though he's not without his acerbic tongue. Assigned Theodore Nott as her patrol partner for their prefect duties, she finally has the time to get to know the two Slytherins, and discovers that there's a whole lot more to them than the prejudice of their past and the snake on their house badge.Slow-burn Draco x Theo x Hermione, endgame happy trio with lots of fluff and smut.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott
Comments: 710
Kudos: 851





	1. A fresh start

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I mentioned this story when I posted my [Draco x Theo vignette piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24679558) on here, and a huge thank you to the comment I got on that encouraging me to post more, and a few more on Tumblr. Thank you for taking the time to leave me that!! 
> 
> There is softness and fluff, some painful memories of the war, some eventual smut, and all set in a bit of a blend of books and films and AU. 
> 
> Title taken from 'She walks in beauty' by Byron:
> 
> _She walks in beauty, like the night  
>  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;  
> And all that’s best of dark and bright  
> Meet in her aspect and her eyes;  
> Thus mellowed to that tender light  
> Which heaven to gaudy day denies. ___

She didn't mean to flinch. 

“Granger,” Malfoy said curtly as he sat down beside her in their first Advanced Arithmancy Studies of the new term. His usual sneer and bravado were somewhat lacklustre though, like the colours of a tapestry bleached and robbed of their vibrancy by the power of the sun. 

Still, she really didn’t mean to flinch. After all, she’d seen him once or twice since that last battle - the now infamous ‘Battle of Hogwarts’ - so it shouldn’t have been so jarring to see him back in his ordinary school robes, with an ordinary Slytherin tie on and an ordinary white school shirt; a quill in his hand instead of a wand brandished… 

But it really was jarring. 

He was a young man in a schoolboy’s uniform and it was frankly ridiculous. It felt somehow like they were trying to pretend as if nothing had happened; like there weren’t huge gaping holes in friendship groups and families, even if the masonry of Hogwarts castle had been restored almost without blemish. The word gouged into her left arm burned dully beneath her blouse. It was ridiculous to pretend; none of them would ever forget what they’d endured in the past two years. 

Malfoy looked older than he should have done at eighteen, and there was something serious, even dolorous, about the set of his brows and his hard, grey eyes. She’d grown so used to seeing him stalking around the halls and corridors of Hogwarts like a spectre; dressed from head to toe in severe black, accentuating the white-blond of his hair and rendering the silver of his eyes colder, the shadows beneath them deeper. His once gold-tinged blond hair had faded to completely, starry white now, and it even had a slight wave to it, which actually went some way towards softening him a little around the edges. He’d apparently realised that an overabundance of hair oil did nothing to ease the slimy impression he gave, and she surprised herself as she snuck a quick glance at him in the classroom to find that she thought the softer look rather suited him. 

What little colour there had been in him to begin with, though, had faded to ink and paper monochrome. 

Now, as Malfoy turned away from her to glare at the front of the classroom and slouch across the desk, resting his sharp chin in a graceful, long-fingered hand, she shot another sidelong look at him and weighed him anew. 

The last time she’d seen him before the start of school had been at his trial. He’d looked truly awful then - worse even than in that dreadful pause during the battle, that holding of breath before the final screams began, when they’d all believed Harry dead and Voldemort victorious. Malfoy had looked like a standing corpse in the empty embrace of Voldemort. 

Gaunt and haunted in the Ministry courtroom docks, it was obvious that he’d been held in the cells in Azkaban for nearly a month before being brought to London. He’d turned eighteen in those cells, no doubt alone. That particular thought made her chest ache. No one deserved to come of age in utter isolation in Azkaban; and certainly not Malfoy of all people. He’d saved their lives in the end, and she’d testified to that in person. He’d refused to identify Harry at the Manor, even though it had been painfully obvious to anyone who’d seen Harry even once who he was, and he’d surrendered his wand to Harry after their brief skirmish. The protest he’d put up had been so farcically thin, it was a miracle that no one had seen right through it. Even in the midst of chaos, he’d done what he could to make it right. The Ministry had said she could make a written statement for them to read out, but Gryffindors didn’t flinch away from difficult situations, and so she’d spoken her testimony aloud in front of everyone. 

Malfoy had stared at her the whole time with those lifeless, ice-grey eyes. His gaunt face was a porcelain mask behind the rune-inlaid bars of the magic-resistant cage which they’d locked him in like an animal while his mother had wept and Hermione had been cross-examined almost to tears herself. They’d made her feel like she was the one in the dock for daring to state the truth about how he and his mother had saved them all. Then again, to have a mudblood defend a family like the Malfoys might have been one stretch too far for most. 

He’d clawed back a bit of weight again in the months before school started up again, but he was still on the leaner side of slim. He still had dark shadows under his eyes too, and the lids looked heavy and almost bruised. His profile, as she now saw it in the classroom, was all sharp angles and hard plains. His jaw was set and a tendon in his neck jutted like a guy-rope, pulled taut and thrumming with the ever-present tension in his body. It seemed to be the only thing holding him together. Even his shoulders were hunched and solid. He looked caught between expecting a blow to the back of the head and being half a second away from drawing his wand. In short, he still looked terrible. 

She stared too long. 

“Waiting for me to bare my arm and cast the Dark Mark above the castle, Granger?” he sneered sidelong at her under his breath. “I think I’ll have to disappoint you.” She thought she heard him mutter something else under his breath, but she didn’t catch it. 

Closing her eyes briefly, she looked away without responding. He was just lashing out and she wasn’t going to rise to it. A seventh year in the row in front had gasped at his words, and began a hushed and scandalised whispering with her neighbour, but Hermione remained silent, staring unseeing at her open textbook. No one really knew what it had been like for any of them - the ones at the core of it all - regardless of the side they’d been on. 

What had McGonagall said in her welcome speech in the Great Hall the night before? “Hogwarts is entering a new age of openness and tolerance, of compassion and companionship, where walls must be torn down and old grudges laid to rest if we are to heal and move forward as a whole - as a unified community - in both school and society at large.” She wasn’t wrong. If Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy could sit side by side in a classroom without disrupting the space-time continuum, there was hope for everyone, she mused, allowing a tiny smile to play across her lips. 

A moment later, someone slid into the lecture hall benches on Malfoy’s other side and she caught a glimpse of Theodore Nott, before Professor Vector swept in amid a billow of robes, and the class of mixed seventh and ‘eighth’ years fell quiet. The movement of his silver-blond head told her that Malfoy had been staring at her since his little outburst and had only just looked away. 

The room was not overly full, and she had been a little surprised to find that Malfoy was taking Arithmancy this year as one of his N.E.W.T. subjects. His strengths had always lain in the practical rather than the theoretical. Not that he wasn’t smart in either field; he’d matched her almost grade-for-grade in nearly every subject they’d taken together since first year. Nott, however, she wasn’t at all surprised to see there. He was the only one who’d ever beaten her test scores - though admittedly only once back in third year when things had been somewhat more… hectic for her. Between the three of them, they probably made up the brightest minds in the student body at that moment. 

Nott leaned forward as Vector began her introductory spiel, and ducked his gaze beneath Malfoy’s chin to sneak a look at her. When Hermione’s eye was drawn by the movement, he met her gaze and flashed her a grin that brought dimples to his cheeks. He was then promptly and unceremoniously shoved back against the classroom bench by the flat of Malfoy’s palm. His back connected with a soft ‘oof’ and he laughed under his breath before falling silent under Vector’s dark glare. 

Hermione frowned, but quickly lost herself in the beautiful and relative complexities of higher level Arithmancy. 

At the end of the class, she packed up her belongings and filed out of classroom 7A alone, heading for the Great Hall and lunch with a growling stomach and a strange knot of tension in her chest. It showed no signs of loosening all day. It felt odd to be walking the halls alone, without Ron on one side and Harry on the other to share a joke or a worry on their way to the next fixture. She ached at their absence, and wrote them each a short letter over her lunch break to tell them how her first morning had gone. She left out her musings over Malfoy, however, and concentrated on the work and how the castle had been restored almost perfectly to its condition prior to the takeover, save for the memorial to the fallen in the courtyard. 

Long after supper that evening, having completed her first Arithmancy assignment already, she headed up to the newly-repurposed Prefects’ Common Room for their first meeting with Headmistress McGonagall. That ball of tension in her chest had gnarled itself tighter and tighter around her heart and lungs, but it wasn't until a first year actually squeaked that she finally realised why people had been shying away from her all afternoon in the corridors and in the Gryffindor common room. Her scowl had become as fierce as a basilisk’s stare. She almost snorted at the idea, especially since her route to the common room had taken her past the girls’ bathrooms, where all the chamber of secrets chaos had found its focus. Famed war heroine Hermione Granger, the brains of the Golden Trio, was glowering like a thunderhead, and people veered away as if she might start spewing acid. 

“Ah, Miss Granger,” McGonagall’s lilting voice called as she finally reached the prefects’ common room at about a minute to nine. “Wonderful. Now we’re just missing Mister Nott, and then we can begin.” 

“Nott’s a prefect?” Hermione hissed at Ginny, and the head girl nodded. “Since when? He wasn’t one _before_ …” All anyone had to do was impose a certain inflection on the word ‘before’ and all the implications were well understood. 

“He was given Malfoy’s badge,” she whispered back. “Can’t very well have that Death Eater ferret stalking the halls at night, can we? McGonagall picked Nott to fill out the Slytherin numbers since Pansy Parkinson and most of the others didn’t return this year.” 

“Ex-Death Eater ferret,” Hermione murmured pointedly, recalling his subdued glower in the classroom that morning, and Ginny pulled a face as she conceded the truth. 

“Still a bloody ferret though,” she huffed. “And he’s here on probation don’t forget. If he fucks up, he’s going straight to Azkaban to join his father.” 

Mulling it over, Hermione fell silent, and a moment later the door opened again and Nott stepped inside. 

She’d never really taken the time to look at him before; he had been a part of Malfoy and Pansy’s little gaggle of Slytherins since the beginning, apparently having known Malfoy since early childhood, but she’d not known him to take part in many of Malfoy’s petty cruelties. He seemed rather bookish, but definitely not shy; aloof but not arrogant. If he hadn’t aligned himself with the Malfoys, he might perhaps have been someone with whom she could have got along. Intellectually, of course. He was still a Slytherin and the son of a convicted Death Eater… 

Now as he stepped into the cosy little room and apologised for his tardiness to the headmistress, and also to Ginny with a quick flash of his eyes, Hermione took stock of his high cheekbones dusted with a plethora of freckles, his sapphire blue eyes that noticed everything and revealed almost nothing, his floppy, dark brown hair that curled attractively in a somewhat old-fashioned and timeless manner and glimmered with gentle highlights in the dancing flames of the fireplace. He was tall too at almost six foot - taller than Malfoy by a good few inches - and a fraction broader at the shoulder. Gone was the skinny, lanky, coltish boy whose robes had hung off him like he was no more than a wire coat-hanger. Merlin, she thought, he’s actually quite handsome now. 

A second later, he caught her staring at him and her cheeks flushed unexpectedly hot. 

Still oddly flustered, she looked away and focused on McGonagall as she began to inform the newer prefects of the duties and expectations of the role, before going on to assign patrol partners. Even in the flickering warmth of the fire, the headmistress looked tired and drained. No doubt the most recent toll on her had been the immense effort of readying the blasted and battered castle for the start of term after the Battle of Hogwarts. 

“In the interests of continuing and promoting congenial inter-house relations, I’m going to be splitting the patrols up. You will no longer be patrolling by house. You will meet in the entrance hall and begin your patrols from there. Now, Padma, you will pair with Hannah; Ernest with Anthony; Emma with Michael; Hermione with Theodore; the rest of you will find your pairs on the rota, and of course the heads of school will patrol together. Any questions?” 

Hermione glanced across the room and found Nott staring at her with a strange quirk to his mouth that was almost a smile. He was leaning against the carved masonry of the door frame, ankles and arms casually crossed - the very picture of nonchalance. She raised one eyebrow at him, and his expression blossomed into a full grin, all white teeth and dimples. Rolling her eyes, she looked away, hearing a very low, faint chuckle. 

“The rota will be posted here in the prefects’ common room, along with the upcoming password for the door,” McGonagall went on. “Anyone found abusing their position, or caught docking or awarding points gratuitously, will be permanently and immediately removed of all privileges. Thank you, and goodnight.” With a flourish, she sent the parchment with the rota fluttering across the room to pin itself to the cork board, and left. 

The younger prefects huddled around it, keen to see which nights they were on duty and someone called, “Granger, Nott! You’re up first!” 

“Wonderful,” Nott purred suddenly standing at her elbow. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello properly earlier.” 

Good Godric, he really was tall, she realised as she turned slowly to regard him and tilted her chin up. “I don’t think we’ve ever actually spoken,” she said carefully. 

“I don’t believe we have,” he returned with an easy, genuine smile. He had all the politeness and poise of a pureblood, trained from birth to schmooze and glide his way through social situations, and she reminded herself not to be charmed by it. He was still a Slytherin, and his father was a notorious and sadistic Death Eater, even if Theodore had mostly stayed out of it himself. He held out his right hand and she stared at it. He had ink stains on his thumb and first two fingers, just like she did. “Theodore Nott,” he grinned. “Call me Theo.” 

With another roll of her eyes, she acquiesced to his playful little farce and shook his hand as if they’d just met. “Hermione Granger.” 

“Everyone knows who you are,” Ginny snorted, sidling up and digging her in the ribs, the gesture making her yelp and lurch towards Nott. He steadied her with a hand on her upper arm and smiled. Ginny glared at him and he let go, still chuckling. “If you fuck around with her, Nott,” Ginny glowered, her face darkening. 

“Ginny,” Hermione said softly, turning to her. “It’s fine. Besides, it’s not as if I don’t know how to take care of myself anyway…” 

“I know that!” Ginny countered hotly. The red in her cheeks eclipsed her freckles for a moment before she took a deep breath. “The same goes for everyone else,” she snarled as she sensed they had an audience. “If anyone pisses around or puts a single bloody toe out of line, I will hex it off, McGonagall will hear of it, and you will be out of here. Got it?” 

Her outburst was met with a mixture of nods and snickers, and with that, she left. 

“Come on,” Hermione said with a quick, awkward laugh. “Let’s get going.” 

“Eager, Granger?” he chuckled, holding the door open and ushering her through first. The gesture didn’t seem facetious, and she nodded curtly at him in thanks as she stepped out into the corridor. “I assume, since you’re an old hand at this whole prefect thing, that you know the routes and the hot spots better than anyone. Lead the way…” 

“Why did you get made a prefect?” she wondered aloud instead of responding. “You’ve never shown any interest in anything relating to school spirit before.” 

“That’s not fair,” he countered easily, striding to catch up with her after softly closing the door behind him. “I watch Draco play qu-quidditch on a regular basis. Have done for years.” 

“Watching sports doesn’t count towards the wellbeing of the whole school, Nott,” she sniffed dismissively, turning left at a portrait of a white haired old witch who appeared to be having a discussion about astronomy with her kneazel, and hopping onto a staircase before it decided to move. 

He sprang after her easily enough. He might not have had seeker reflexes, but he certainly wasn’t clumsy either. “Of course it does,” he said. “If no one showed up, morale would plummet faster than a dropped quaffle and you know it. But you’re right; I haven’t shown much interest other than that… No time like the present,” he added a little breathily. 

“Indeed. I heard Malfoy is trying out for seeker of the Slytherin team this year. Ginny says he’s good.” 

“Mmm.” 

“You’ll be able to bolster your already admirable school spirit then by being a prefect as well as continuing to support him from the stands then,” she said sarcastically. 

Nott only laughed lightly and strode along beside her, but after a while he cleared his throat and said, “Listen, about earlier in Arithmancy… Draco told me what happened… what he said…” He scratched his jawline and grimaced. “Don’t mind him…” he faltered. It sounded like he was aiming for a light tone, but he missed a mile. “He doesn’t really mean it when he says things…” he didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. 

“I know,” she said, pausing to listen at the end of a shadowy corridor. As she glanced up at him, she witnessed a flicker of surprise in Nott’s dark blue eyes. “Malfoy’s always lashed out like that when he’s feeling defensive. And it’s no wonder he had a go at me today - it must be hell for him being back here with everyone staring and whispering.” She sighed. “Better than the alternatives, I’m sure, but still. It’s brave of him to come back to Hogwarts.” 

Theodore blinked twice, and then a slow, dazzling smile dawned on his handsome face. 

Merlin, had he always been that good looking? She refused to let that of all things become a problem on their first patrol, and so, fighting to keep a blush off her cheeks, she marched off down another corridor before he could say another word. 

It was true, although it had taken her actually speaking the words aloud to realise it. Malfoy had always had some pithy, nasty, venomous comeback whenever he was cornered, his words designed to inflict enough showy, hurtful damage to allow him to escape. In a world where he’d been rendered all but helpless by others, buffeted this way and that by more powerful players, and with impossible choices forced on him, his sharp tongue and hard, silver glare had been some of his only defences. 

He really is like a snake, she thought wryly: beautiful, quick, and deadly, but… perhaps largely harmless if left un-threatened. 

To her surprise, it took Nott a brief moment to catch up with her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to more! The whole thing is currently about 14,000 words in my drafts folder, but most of that is later-stage chapters. Depending on the feedback I get from this, I might try to update soon though!


	2. 'strip the gillyweed'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Hermione settles into her (predictably) monstrous workload this term, she finds herself torn between memories from 'before' and the way things are now, and it leaves her drifting and anxious. Her tentative friendship with a certain Slytherin prefect isn't quite as helpful as it might be, and after a slight misunderstanding with Malfoy in a Potions class, she finds her way out into the grounds to Hagrid's hut for a cup of tea and a cuddle with the now rather aged Fang...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge huge huge thank you to everyone who read this and left kudos, bookmarked it, or commented! You're the reason I'm posting this second chapter so soon! It was mostly written, and just needed an edit this morning. Thank you so much! I hope you like this one - there's a mix of fluff and a touch of angst.
> 
> I also don't intend to update every day, and this chapter is nearly 4k words long.
> 
> And remember when I said this was slow burn? Just... reminding you of that. :)

To say that Hermione was busy this year was… a tiny bit of an understatement. Like saying a nundu had morning breath, or an acromantula could be contained in a water glass like a house spider. 

Sure, she’d pushed the definition of ‘busy’ in her third year, but now, even without a time turner, she was still cramming in as many N.E.W.T’s as she possibly could. It didn’t matter that she’d actually already taken one of them before term started, under the supervision of the headmistress. It didn’t excuse her from attending Advanced Arithmancy Studies, Potions, Ancient Runes, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, and even an Ancient Studies elective. When she wasn’t holed up in her favourite corner of the library - where she, Ron, and Harry had all gathered over the years to do research both academic and illicit - she managed to find time to tutor some of the younger students, while also acting as a teaching assistant in Muggle Studies three times a week, and patrolling with Nott on their rota nights. 

Three weeks into term, she closed up her books and paused on the cusp of leaving that hallowed library corner, and stared at it. Her eyes prickled with exhaustion, and she blinked and fought off a yawn. Dust motes danced in the dim dusk that gathered and pooled in the darkness between the shelves, like a cat arching its back and begging her for just one more stroke before she left. 

So many memories had crystallised there over the years, each one so breathtakingly tangible, that all it would take was the brush of a fingertip on a book’s spine here or the scratchy rhythm of a quill on parchment there to bring every single one of them rushing back, vivid and sacred as a pensieve’s collection. She could trace her fingers over the wonky ‘R.W’ that Ron had idly carved into the table in their first year, and even see the faint shadow of an ink stain where Harry had upset an entire bottle of unsmudgeable ink when Cho had smiled at him once in fourth year. Memories had been etched into this corner of the castle like none other, and just breathing in the musty smell of dust and parchment eased her racing heart when things got a little… frantic. Which, she was loathe to admit, was beginning to happen more and more often as the weeks ticked by. 

Her hair was looking a touch frantic and frazzled now too. Perhaps she could nip into Hogsmeade and pick up a few potions to help with that at least, and she made a mental note to slot it into her timetable that she’d devised for the weekend. 

On patrol that night, as she bit back her umpteenth yawn, Nott looked down at her and said, “We’re only three weeks into term, Granger. You shouldn’t be this exhausted already.” 

“I’m fine,” she snapped, leading the way down a corridor lined with severe suits of armour. She half expected them to salute or start filing out into the courtyard again, and it make the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Nott hadn’t been here for the Battle, having been evacuated at the last moment with a load of other students, and she wondered how he felt about that, and how he would have acted had he been there. Had he defended their ranks or had he fled at the fore? 

Nott’s smooth, rich voice recalled her attention to the present. “… taking about a million classes, Granger,” he chuckled. “Plus everything else on your timetable.” 

She ground to a halt with a scowl and glared up at him. “And how would you know what’s on my timetable?” she asked, prickling further. Her hair had probably just swelled in volume too, as if it had gained sentience, but she resisted the urge to smooth it down. About half of it had already sprung out of the plait she’d woven it into earlier, and she didn’t feel like stopping to fix her hair in front of the smarmy Slytherin. This was the longest she’d ever worn it, not having bothered to cut it since… she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a haircut. Two years, perhaps?

Nott just rolled his eyes and tucked his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know _exactly_ what’s on your timetable, of c-course. I just know you’re always scuttling around the place like one of McGonagall’s transfiguration beetles.” 

“Oh. Well, yes, I am… busy,” she admitted with a rather unsatisfactory huff. “How many subjects are you taking?” 

“Four,” he said. That was more than most took for N.E.W.T.’s, she knew. “Potions, Arithmancy, Charms, and Ancient Runes.” 

“Oh.” 

Pausing at the statue of the Hogwarts Architect, he cocked his head and raised one eyebrow. “Don’t tell me, five?” 

She rolled her eyes and looked away, embarrassed. “Six, with Ancient Studies as an elective.” 

Nott froze. “Slytherin’s Shitsticks, Granger,” he gawped, losing his usual quiet calm for a moment. “You’re aware that’s completely nuts, right?” 

If he made her roll her eyes one more time she was going to get vertigo. “I’m aware that taking this many is… unconventional… but… McGonagall thinks I can do it. Besides, I already took my Transfiguration exam before term started. I just have to attend the classes as a formality, but I don’t actually have to do any of the assignments. I passed, by the way.” 

“Right,” he said slowly. “Which is why you were in the library yesterday, surrounded by a veritable fortress of Transfiguration textbooks.” 

Her shoulders dropped and she felt her eyes stinging. _I didn’t go through the entire Second bloody Wizarding War to let some pureblood Slytherin arsehole bully me about how many classes I’m taking_ , she thought, grinding her teeth. She was the next thing to stamping her foot in frustration when the wall beside them in the Entrance Hall rippled and revealed the passageway to the Slytherin dungeons, and Malfoy of all people stepped out with a face like a thunderhead. 

“Draco?” Nott murmured, leaving Hermione immediately and going over to him. He touched him on the upper arm in a very familiar, and oddly tender, gesture and Malfoy’s silver eyes dropped to the point of contact before darting up to his face. “What’s up? Why are you out at this time of night?” 

“I…” Malfoy began but his eyes drifted to Hermione and his gaze hardened to steel instantly. “Nothing. Forget it.” And he turned on his heel and disappeared back the way he’d come. 

Nott watched him go until the wall closed up behind him, and he turned with a serious expression on his handsome face. “Suppose you’ll want to dock some points for his being out and about after dark,” he grumbled like a child caught with his hand in the sweetie jar. 

With a flat look, Hermione snorted. “You really think I’m petty enough to dock points from someone who looks like he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in two years? Come on, I’m not that heartless.” 

Nott stood there and stared at her for a moment before a shy, small smile graced his lips. “Never thought I’d see the day when you covered for a Slytherin, let alone Draco.” 

Any comeback she might have had died in her throat. Wordlessly, she shook her head. Then, feeling her shoulders drop a little as she recalled the exact expression on Malfoy’s face, she said gently, “I’ll finish up. You should go and check on him.” 

“Granger, you don’t have to -” he began but she was already walking away. Nott didn’t follow her, and when she reappeared after checking that the Great Hall was empty and still, the Entrance Hall was deserted too. With a quick glance at the now blank wall, she smiled privately and headed off to climb into bed and fall asleep almost before her head even hit the pillow. 

Waking even earlier than usual, Hermione lay in her red-draped four-poster and stared up at the canopy. It was one of those mornings where she hardly dared breathe in case everything shattered around her. If she blinked, she might wake up in a frozen tent in the Forest of Dean. “Stop it,” she scolded herself, forcing her body to move and sit upright. The covers pooled around her waist as she did, and she reached for a book on her bedside table. It was a muggle novel, and one she’d read countless times. She had Potions first, but there was nothing to prepare for it, so she had an hour and a half between the start of breakfast and the start of classes to fill. 

Eventually swinging her feet out of bed after re-reading her favourite passages, she drew back the drapes of her four-poster and glanced out of the window. 

Perhaps it was the months spent living in a tent under constant vigilance that made her look out, but whatever it was, she saw a lone figure flying over the quidditch pitch in wild, daring loops, climbing ever higher and higher until she lost them in the clouds, only for them to come rocketing out in a breakneck, plunging dive that brought her hand to her mouth and her heart to her throat as she stared, transfixed. They disappeared behind the walls of the arena, and for a heart-stopping few seconds, she thought they’d crashed, but to her relief, the figure shot back up and wove between the goalposts at an astonishing speed. They moved like a snitch - quick and unpredictable, as though following a flight of whimsy rather than directing a broomstick. 

Flying had never been one of her fortes, but a lack of interest in the sport of quidditch - something of a sore point between her and Ron - did not mean she didn’t admire those who could fly like Harry and Ginny did; all raw instinct and untethered speed. She shuddered at the thought of straddling a broomstick. The last time she’d been on one had been escaping the Room of Requirement and the snapping, burning jaws of a fiendfyre curse. No, there was no way she’d ever get back on a broom again. 

She turned away from the window with a shudder and got dressed to go down to the Great Hall early. There would hardly be anyone there at that time of the morning, and she always enjoyed the bacon and eggs when it was absolutely fresh from the pan. The stasis charms worked fine, but there was something about having it straight away that just tasted so much better. It reminded her of mornings with her parents that she would never get to experience again. Besides, the coffee wouldn’t be over-brewed now either. 

Entering and making her way habitually to the Gryffindor table, she saw that all was as she’d expected - almost completely empty. With a smile, she settled down in their - hers, Harry’s and Ron’s - usual place about halfway down, and reached for a nearby plate of fresh fruit, ladling some into the little bowl that appeared in front of her just in time. 

A prickling on the back of her neck made her freeze and she turned to find Theodore Nott standing a little way off, a copy of the Daily Prophet in his hands. The ink stains from the day before hadn’t faded completely, and in his top pocket she could just glimpse a pair of dark rimmed glasses. He looked more like an absent-minded professor than a student and the sight of him made her insides heat unexpectedly. “Morning,” he said, apparently unaware of the effect he’d had on her. His voice was still gruff and deeper, the rough edges of sleep still lingering. “I was just leaving. Prophet?” 

She regarded him carefully for a second or two and then smiled. “Sure. Thank you.” 

He approached, set it down beside her bowl, and smiled. “See you in Potions.” 

Hermione glanced at the front page, but her curious gaze wandered back down the hall and watched Nott retreat. He was all long, lean lines and he moved with the grace of a doe. He’d have made a good dancer, she thought, surprising herself again and scowling. If she’d had time to think about these things before - instead of haring around the country in a constant state of terror - perhaps she might not be so terrible at dealing with these kinds of intrusive thoughts about how pretty Theodore Nott’s freckles looked or how good his hair looked still slightly ruffled from sleep. Good Godric, even his scratchy voice had sounded attractive. 

This would not do. 

With a little flurry and a stern talking to, she picked up the paper and turned her attentions to current affairs. 

The headlines were full of the Ministry’s efforts at rebuilding everything again, but there was a small feature on Harry that was mostly fiction. She read it with a rueful smile on her lips while she finished her breakfast off, and then folded it up and left it on the table for someone else. At least, the article had sounded like fiction. She’d not actually heard back from either Harry or Ron since the start of term. As she stalked out of the hall she tried to ignore the twinge in her chest at the sight of a group of three first years - yes, two boys and a girl - animatedly nattering on about the staircases and the portraits and all the marvellous wonders of Hogwarts that now seemed so terribly ordinary to her. She reminded herself to open her eyes a bit more and try to recall a little of that awe she’d felt for at least the first four years of her time there. 

Where had it all gone? When had she stopped being amazed at everything? The inside of her left forearm throbbed and she rubbed it absentmindedly with her right thumb. 

Potions saw them all paired up this time, each placed in front of brass cauldrons. Hermione found herself paired with Malfoy, since Theo had arrived late and was seated next to Padma and no one else had wanted to go near Malfoy with his brooding glower and his chequered past. Nott’s time keeping was probably one of the few things he actually had to work on with any real effort. 

They looked down the ingredients list as Slughorn bumbled about, and she shot Malfoy a quick look. He had already worked out what it was they were brewing, if the smirk lingering at the corner of his surprisingly full lips was anything to go by. 

“I’ll grind up the dried leaping toadstools if you strip the gillyweed,” she ventured and Malfoy looked up at her, that smirk still there and growing slightly under her gaze. He raised one icy blond eyebrow at her. “What?” she chirped, feeling her face heat. Had she said something stupid? Offensive? Godric-forbid… _incorrect_? 

“‘Strip the gillyweed’ sounds like a euphemism,” he muttered, still smiling, but he picked up the little rat’s tail of a plant and placed it on his chopping board. As his long fingers closed around the handle of the pairing knife and he steadied the gillyweed with his right hand, she caught a glimpse of the signet ring he wore on the little finger of - unconventionally - his right hand. Of course; he was left handed. Something about that fact made her throat go dry, though she couldn’t articulate why not. Neville was also left handed, and that didn’t send her cardiovascular system into overdrive. Draco did have beautiful hands, she thought, all pale skin and long, slender fingers, and immediately bit her lips together in shocked horror, eyes widening a little. 

What?! 

The blush she’d been holding back through sheer force of will burst across her cheeks like a broken dam as his words crashed though her mind, and she reached for the little bowl of dried toadstools and began to grind them to a fine powder with the pestle and mortar. The thought of Draco Malfoy making an innuendo based joke - and a sexual innuendo joke too - in her presence was actually quite funny upon reflection and it was ridiculous to be embarrassed about it. “You know,” she said without looking up, still blushing and still mashing the dessicated toadstools with the pestle, “There’s a muggle country dance called ‘strip the willow’. Wonder if they… _stem_ from the same place.” 

He paused, his delicate fingers having stripped the outer layer of the gillyweed off to reveal the jelly-like substance inside which would then be scraped out, rather like the insides of a vanilla pod. “Really, Granger?” he drawled with sarcastic, affected interest that made her stomach churn a little. He wasn’t being cruel, but it was obvious that he thought her comments inane. “What a mine of useless information you are.” 

Her shoulders dropped with - relief? Surely not disappointment? - and she looked away and continued to crush the toadstools to a fine powder without speaking. 

The tension between them grew like acrid potion fumes until after the end of the class, when Slughorn had awarded ten points each to Gryffindor and Slytherin for their combined efforts. 

Malfoy looked up as she gathered her belongings into her bag, sliding off the stool, straightening her skirt and blouse, and preparing to head to the library for her free period. She had some last minute Charms homework to finish. “Granger,” he called quietly. She stilled at the sound of her name on his lips and looked up at him through thick, dark lashes. He swallowed visibly. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine, Malfoy,” she said and turned to go. 

“No, it’s not. It was inappropriate, and…” a slight blush dusted his high, snowy cheekbones. “…And it was… insensitive of me to imply that… that a knowledge of muggle information is useless.” 

“Oh,” she said. Oh indeed. “I… I actually hadn’t even thought of it that way. Don’t worry about it anyway, Malfoy. I’ll see you in Charms this afternoon.” 

Nott actually tossed her a crooked smile as he moved over to join Draco, and she heard a soft thump and a winded ‘oof’ as one of them presumably punched the other in the shoulder. She had no idea who had done the hitting, but she thought it best not to turn it into a spectacle and look. 

With no classes until Charms that afternoon, she had fully intended to go to the library but now as she emerged from the slightly befuddling atmosphere of the Potions dungeons, she couldn't face the thought of being cooped up inside any longer. She could do the homework over lunch. Heck, she could probably do it while taking a nap. 

Making up her mind, she hurried up the stairs from the dungeons and then paused on the threshold of the entrance hall, for a moment seeing two courtyards through the open doorway - one in her memory and one with her eyes. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she forced herself to relax and open her eyes. It was over. There were no piles of rubble, no corpses, no… _him_. 

The day was surprisingly warm for late September in Scotland, and the low sun kissed the heather-tipped mountains around the school, painting them a vibrant purple beneath their gilded peaks. The waters of the lake would be glittering invitingly off to the south of the castle. A breeze wafted over the grounds, bringing with it the scent of damp pine and water weed. Everything was peaceful again and she scarcely dared believe it. 

Without even returning to Gryffindor tower to ditch her bag, or glancing back to convince herself to go back to the library, she kicked her feet into motion again and headed out through the grounds, taking herself almost unthinkingly to the place where she and Harry and Ron had often gone when feeling wobbly about something. 

Hagrid’s hut sat nestled squat as a mushroom on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, its small pumpkin patch guarded by the most fearsome and terrible of guard dogs - the slobbery, and now rather aged, Fang. The moment he saw her, he gave a low, broken bay and came lolloping stiffly over, his ashy-grey coat shimmering in the beautiful sunshine. “Hey there, Fang!” she laughed fondly as he joined her and leapt up onto his hind legs, his giant, muddy paws on her shoulders, trying to lick her face. 

“Fang! Get down!” Hagrid bellowed from the doorway of his hut. “For goodness’ sake, mind yer manners, boy,” he added but the dog payed him very little attention. 

“Down, Fang,” she said, pushing him gently and scourgifying the mud from her uniform and the slobber from her cheek with a shudder. “Good boy.” 

He woofed softly and stalked at her heel like a huge, black lion as she approached Hagrid’s hut and the enormous man stepped outside to greet her. “Hermione!” he boomed, beetle-black eyes shining. “Ah, but it’s good to see yeh. C’mere,” and he opened his enormous arms wide. 

Without hesitation, she stepped into his embrace and let him hug her. The touch brought a sea of emotions welling up inside her. With her parents obliviated and Harry and Ron absent, no one had given her so much as a hug in weeks, and the sudden comfort it brought reduced her almost to tears. In the past seven years, Hagrid had become something of an uncle to them all; huge, protective, and fiercely loyal. Now it felt like he was all she had in all the world. She knew it wasn’t true, but as she fought off tears, it certainly felt that way. 

“What brings you here?” he asked when he released her. 

She shrugged, turning away and swallowing her feelings in favour of kneeling and petting Fang’s floppy ears. “Wanted to get away from the castle for a bit, I suppose,” she said carefully. “I haven’t had much time to come and see you - and you, Fang,” she said when he barged his big nose into her hand. “How are you both?” 

“Oh, we’re fine, we’re fine,” he said, clearly seeing straight through her words, but letting her be for now. “Lots to keep us busy, eh boy?” he asked the dog, who just wagged his bull whip tail a few times and whined quietly. “You wanna sit out here on the logs?” he asked her, indicating a few tree trunks that had been sliced in half to leave a flat top and arranged around an outside fire pit, “Or you wanna come in?” 

Hermione’s eyes took in the sky with its fluffy silver clouds, punctuated occasionally with a flash of blue, and said, “Outside for now, I think, thank you.” 


	3. Turmoil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks into term, Hermione still struggles with how different everything feels, and yet how similar it all is too. After her chat with Hagrid and Fang, she returns to the castle for Charms, and a spell Flitwick has her demonstrate stirs up feelings in more than just Hermione...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Thank you thank you THANK YOU for the responses I've had to this story!! I can't tell you how wonderful it is that you're embracing this and taking the time to give me such amazing feedback on the characters etc.!! This chapter is a bit heavy on the feels, but the next one is lighter in tone, I promise. And it features more interaction between Hermione and Theo on their patrol, where they stumble across something...

“Right you are,” Hagrid beamed, shuffling a little bit on the spot. As he looked down at her, she realised that he was wearing the same, achingly worried expression he had when they’d all shown up that night with Ron hurling slugs and Hermione in tears. Somehow remembering that almost made her smile. “You, uh, want somethin’ to drink? Pumpkin juice? Tea maybe?” 

Automatically, she shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you, Hagrid.” _You’re not being a bother, and he asked you_ , she scowled silently. _You’re allowed to ask for things you’d like_. “No, actually, a cup of tea would be lovely, if you’ve got the kettle on.” 

“You know me, Hermione,” Hagrid chuckled, obviously glad for something practical to do. “Kettle’s always on ’ere.” 

Hermione smiled and watched the enormous man bumble back inside his modest, stone hut, and inhaled deeply. The air was cool and damp here on the edge of the forest, sheltered from the prevailing winds, and it carried with it the eerie, haunting croon of thestrals and the other creatures that lived in the forest, accompanied all the while by the soft susurrations of the breeze through the pine trees. If she strained her imagination hard enough, she could pretend to hear the swish of Buckbeak’s wings, or the hoarse croaks of young baby Norbert. A faint waft of cold smoke coiled up from the empty ashes in the fire pit, and the green scent of earth filled her mind for a long moment, stilling it for the first time in weeks. If anywhere felt like home now, it was probably here. 

Alone for a little while, except for Fang, Hermione sank down onto a log and then, just because she felt like it, she lay down along its length and crossed her ankles. The wood formed a cool pressure right along her body, grounding her, and she sighed, hair splayed out beneath her head in a wild riot of curls. 

Fang immediately plonked himself down on the ground beside her, the old dog leaning against the log as if it needed him to buttress it up, and she hooked her arm affectionately around his thick neck. “You’re like a giant teddy bear,” she chuckled as he tipped his head in her direction and tried to lick her face. Mercifully, he was just out of range. “An incredibly slobbery giant teddy bear, I’ll grant you, but still.” She was glad that, despite everything, Fang had made it through the war. He felt as much a part of this place as Hagrid did. 

“So how’s things?” Hagrid asked as he emerged once again, the strong, milky contents of two giant mugs slopping slightly over the edge as he jostled with the door. He put one down on the log next to her to cool a little, and then eased himself down onto a log opposite her. 

It groaned ominously, but held. 

“Busy,” she said honestly and he chortled a big, rumbling laugh, belly shaking. 

“Yer always busy, Hermione!” he said, still chuckling fondly. “I’d be worried if yeh weren’t. But how’s things without Ron and Harry? Yer not lonely, are yeh? And how are they getting on?” 

She sucked the insides of her cheeks suddenly to keep from crying, emotions swelling inside her again as if under an _engorgio_ charm. “I suppose they’re busy as well,” she said carefully, but her voice still trembled. 

Fang nosed at her hand and licked her fingers gently. 

“You ‘suppose’?” Hagrid asked, the quiet promise of thunder in his gentle voice. 

With a heavy sigh she draped her free arm back over her head, enjoying the languorous stretch and feeling a bit like Crookshanks in his favourite sunny spot back at The Burrow. “I thought… I thought it would be alright without them,” she began. “And it is, for the most part, honestly. But… you know they’re both doing grown-up things like Auror training and earning a living already - Ron’s working in George’s shop in Diagon Alley - and meanwhile I’m… well, I’m still at school, Hagrid. It’s no wonder they haven’t bothered to write to me. They’re probably both too busy being important.” 

“Oh Hermione,” he crooned gently, that thunderously protective edge still lurking in his voice, “Don’t talk like that. Yer bloody brilliant, you are. Yer gonna get the best marks anyone has ever seen at Hogwarts - better ‘an Dumbledore and McGonagall put together - and then yer gonna go on to do wonderful things when you leave here. It ain’t a rush and it ain’t a competition.” 

Despite the fact that she laughed at his earnest, honest words, tears suddenly spilled from the corners of her eyes and disappeared into her wild hair as she lay there on her back. Fang shuffled himself around and tried to lick them off, but she really did draw the line at that and gently pushed his muzzle away before he could smear his hot tongue and vile slobber over her face. 

“Thanks, Fang,” she said gently, knowing that the dog was emotionally intelligent, if maybe not quite so intellectually. “I’m just… I just… I feel so alone, Hagrid. I’ve got Ginny, of course, and Neville and a few others, but no one else has been through everything that we did - not the way that Harry and Ron and I did - and I feel like no one else… _understands_ that. Ginny does, to an extent, but she was still sheltered for some of it.” 

Always running; setting up the wards and constantly jumping at every last noise; foul, out of the way places to call ‘home’ for a few nights; exhaustion; fear bordering on mania; bickering; tempers fraying; desperation; isolation; helplessness; pain; the agony of loss again and again… 

She stroked Fang’s smoke-soft coat for a bit, fingers skimming the silvery fur, and eventually began to feel a bit better for the contact. Hagrid didn’t speak and she loved him for his quiet patience. 

After a while, she added, “Don’t get me wrong, Hagrid, I’m glad no one else had to go through it all, but… Sometimes I feel like the only person here at Hogwarts who has been through as much is… well… is Draco _Malfoy_ , so you can imagine my sentiments about _that_ .” But… what _were_ her sentiments about that, exactly? She found that she didn’t like to dwell on it, actually, since examining it only seemed to muddy the waters. 

Hagrid was quiet for a just moment longer before he said quietly, “He came to see me on the first day of term, you know?” 

At that world-tilting revelation, she looked over at him sharply. “What?” she barked. 

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his beard and taking a huge gulp of tea. “Can’t say I was too happy to see him, o’course, but… before I could set Fang on him, he just apologised. Stood there with his hands in his pockets and said he was sorry for… for Buckbeak, and for my house getting burned, and everything. Said he knew he couldn’t make it right, but he wanted to clear the air a bit.” 

“What did you tell him?” she asked faintly. 

“I told him that if he really meant it, then… well… I’m no acromantula; I won’t hold a grudge forever. But if he’s really sorry for everything - an’ I mean everything - then he’ll start to do some good with that name of his, instead of bad.” 

She snorted and looked back up at the sky. A patch of blue in the shape of a Welsh Green dragon had opened up above her and was drifting lazily overhead towards the Forbidden Forest. She watched it as she said, “Can’t imagine he took that very well.” 

“Actually, he just nodded and said ‘yeah’ before walking back off to the castle on his own. I had to have a whole mug full of firewhisky just to settle myself down afterwards,” he snorted. She didn’t blame him. She’d felt like she needed a whole bottle of the stuff after Malfoy had apologised to her in Potions, and that had been over something fairly inconsequential. “He looks awful. Like someone took all the starch out of him, Hermione. Like he’s got nothing left no more.” 

She sighed and found herself nodding in agreement. “It’s like I keep seeing two Malfoys, Hagrid. There’s the snotty little pureblood boy from first year who was just awful and defensive and volatile, always seeking approval and validation… and then there’s this haunted young man with all the weight of grief and guilt on his shoulders, and… I don’t know how to reconcile the two. Or if I even need to. Or if I should!” She cringed, realising how shrill her voice had grown, and Fang whined softly. “Sometimes I really think he’s changed and he’ll surprise me - like today, when he made a flippant comment and it took me completely off guard. Then he apologised afterwards and I nearly passed out. I couldn't believe that Draco Malfoy was apologising to me - especially for something so petty!” 

“Imagine how I felt,” Hagrid said wryly. 

Another sigh rolled out of her but before she had time to say any more about Malfoy’s cruelly snapped comments and acrid personality, footsteps on the gravel path leading down to the pumpkin patch drew their attention. Fang didn’t budge from her side, but he gave a low, warm ‘woof’ of greeting, as Neville came intro sight. 

“Hello Hagrid, Fang,” he beamed. “Hermione!” he added when he spotted her. 

“Hi Neville,” she replied, sitting up again and dusting off her skirt. “Didn’t expect to see you here.” 

“Likewise. Thought you’d be in the library!” 

She tried not to let the innocent comment sting and Neville carried on while she drained half of her mug of tea in one go. It was strong enough to tan leather, but the taste of it fortified her somehow. 

“Come to collected those chizpurfles for the venomous tentacula’s weekly feed, Hagrid, if you don’t mind. And some more doxy venom if you have it. Professor Slughorn asked me to pick some up next time I stopped by.” 

“Right you are,” Hagrid grunted as he got up off the log and stumped off into his hut. 

Hermione looked up at Neville over the rim of her mug and realised just how much he’d grown up too. He was almost handsome now. He met her eye and flashed her a curious frown, and she laughed softly and set the mug down. Fang began to lap at the remnants and she abandoned it happily enough to him. “I was just talking to Hagrid about how much we’ve all grown up since first year. How’s life as Professor Sprout’s teaching assistant?” 

Some of the few ‘eighth years’ had been adopted by various members of staff as teaching assistants, and she’d been approached by no fewer than three. Muggle Studies was plenty enough for her though. 

“Oh it’s going great,” Neville beamed. “Professor Sprout’s letting me grow the squill on my own and they’re doing really well so far. Slughorn needs them for his Felix Felicis class later this term.” 

“That’s great,” she said, and she really meant it. He deserved to be happy after everything. Rumour had it that he and Hannah Abbott were getting closer and closer too. 

“What about you? You seem busier than ever…” he said. 

With a long inhale and a knowing look, she nodded. “Yes. Speaking of, I should stop talking Hagrid’s ear off and get back up to the castle. I’ve got three essays to finish today and Charms at sixth period.” 

Hagrid emerged a moment later with a small crate of assorted things for Neville and he chuckled fondly. “That’s our Hermione, eh Neville? Never sitting still for more ‘an five minutes at a time!” He paused before handing the crate to Neville and added, “Yer welcome here any time - all of you lot, you know that. You need a cup of tea, or a cuddle with Fang, yer more ‘an welcome to it.” 

Her throat closed up a little and she promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. “Thanks, Hagrid. And you, Fang,” she smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and earning a thwack around the calves from his tail for the effort. 

“You going back up to the castle, Neville?” she asked and he nodded. 

“Well, greenhouses,” he amended. 

“Mind if I join you?” 

“Not at all.” 

“See you Hagrid!” they both chimed and she headed back with her chest feeling considerably lighter. Something did lurk in the background though, like a grindylow in the weeds, but she tried not to give it any attention. Malfoy. It was all their talk about Malfoy. And she didn’t want to think about him just then. Neville, it seemed, had no such concerns about bringing up the Slytherins. 

As they neared the greenhouses, footsteps crunching on the compacted gravel pathway, he asked, “How are your prefect patrols with Nott going?” 

“You heard about that, huh?” she grinned. 

“Ginny mentioned something about prefects being paired with different houses. Is he alright? I never really knew him ‘before’.” 

Before. That word carried such weight. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear only for it to spring loose again immediately. “It’s not bad, actually. I was wary at first, but I’ve got to know him a bit in some of my classes too, and he’s honestly not awful. He’s a cocky little shit, don’t get me wrong, but… he’s also kind of nice.” 

“For a Slytherin…” Neville snorted playfully. 

“No, for anyone,” she said evenly. “He’s extremely smart, and surprisingly considerate, and he’s even rather witty. I don’t mind being on a rota with him at all.” 

Neville shot her a long look but eventually shrugged. “What do Harry and Ron have to say about it?” 

Her chest twisted painfully and she looked away. “They’re not my keepers, Neville,” she snapped under her breath. 

“I didn't mean it like that,” he said patiently. “I just… I just meant… never mind. I’m sorry.” 

“No, I’m sorry,” she insisted. “I’ve been in a funny mood all day. I’m sure Luna would tell me it’s wrackspurts or something.” 

Neville smiled and they parted ways at the greenhouses with a promise to catch up at lunch. 

All in all, Hermione wasn’t sure that her trip to Hagrid’s had done much other than fill her up with mightily strong tea, but the walk had probably done her good and put some colour in her cheeks, as her mother used to say. God, she missed her parents. Kingsley Shacklebolt had promised to send agents to check in on them from time to time, but he’d sent no word lately of how they were doing. No news, she assumed, meant good news at least. 

The remainder of her day passed relatively uneventfully, and she got the homework done in good time, just as she’d planned. 

It still felt oddly as if she were drifting about the place, more of a ghost than any of the genuine spirits who haunted the halls of Hogwarts, but she half hoped she could get the chance to talk to Malfoy again in Charms that afternoon. The tentative truce they’d shared in the first few weeks of term - polite nods and tersely academic conversation - seemed in danger of fracturing and shattering. If it went now, she wasn’t sure they’d get another chance to repair the damage done by their shared history. 

Malfoy, however, sat beside Nott and didn’t look up at all from his textbook, except to perform an impressively nonchalant flick of his wand to transform some vinegar into a rather inviting-looking glass of champagne at Flitwick’s invitation. He even transfigured the glass in the same sweep to turn it from a squat, ugly tumbler into an elegant flute. 

“Very nice, Mr. Malfoy,” Professor Flitwick chirruped. “Now, Miss. Granger, can you tell us why such a charm is taught here in this classroom, and not in Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall? Extra transfigurations notwithstanding,” he added with a flash of his eyes at Malfoy. 

_Because taking classes with obnoxiously stubborn Slytherins drives one to drink…_ “Well, simply put: oxidation of the ethanol in the wine forms ethanoic acid which produces vinegar. All this charm does is force that oxidation reaction to run the other way, and return the vinegar to its original, reduced state. You can repeat the charm as many times as you like, oscillating between vinegar and wine, but that’s all you could do. It’s why you couldn’t use this charm to convert orange juice into champagne. You’d need to transfigure that, as Malfoy did rather neatly with the glass,” she added in his direction. 

Malfoy’s silver eyes darted from the page in front of him where he’d been doodling - small drawings of owls and serpents, she thought, though it was hard to tell from that angle - and found her face. She offered him a tiny smile, and to her surprise, he returned it, though the gesture was barely more than a twitch of one corner of his full lips. 

“Very good,” Professor Flitwick said, returning to the front of the small classroom. “Now, for our next charm, I have something a little less… frivolous in mind. Miss Granger, if you’d be so kind as to come down to be my demonstration partner?” 

She shunted her chair back and stood, smoothing out her skirt automatically before coming down to the front of the room. It felt odd to have everyone’s eyes on her, and she almost had to close her own for a moment to remind herself that she was not back at the Ministry, and Malfoy was no longer on trial. Her eyes flickered up to his shot of silver hair in the back row, but he was doodling again. She was at Hogwarts, and she was supposed to be listening to Flitwick so that she knew which bloody charm he wanted to demonstrate with her. 

“…is a protective charm that will create a barrier around the caster and keep them from the view of people on the other side,” Flitwick said. 

Oh heck, did she know this one. And she’d probably cast it accidentally in her sleep a hundred times since returning from their life on the run. 

“Hermione?” Flitwick asked, “Are you alright? You’ve gone a shade… green.” 

“I’m fine, Professor,” she smiled, tamping everything down inside her again. “You want me to cast it now?” 

“If you would be so kind.” 

Bringing her hand up, she flicked her wand and muttered, “ _Cave_ _inimicum_.” 

The shuddering wall of magic descended around her, muffling and distorting the voices of the class. From the safety of her invisible bubble, she could stare openly at Malfoy and she discovered, to her surprise, that he’d been wearing an oddly intense expression as he’d watched her cast. Nott, sitting beside him, looked as casual as ever at first glance, but now that she took the time to look a little longer, she saw an intense light in his dark blue eyes that had only kindled when Malfoy had leaned forwards on the desk, long fingers folded in front of him, his icy grey eyes alive and roiling with emotions she couldn't read. 

“Thank you, Miss Granger,” Flitwick’s voice echoed dully through the barrier to her ears. “Presuming you’re still there, of course.” He chortled amusedly at his own joke. “Now, if I stick my hand through the barrier, it will disrupt it, but if I step inside entirely —” he did so, and she smiled as the tiny wizard looked up at her and the charm fractured but held tenuously, “— you will see how easily the illusion is shattered. Of course, you can still hear through one of these barriers, so the caster will have to use other enchantments to reduce noises.” 

Someone made a predictably crass comment about having a quickie behind the broomstick sheds with this one, and half the class snorted. Those students among them who had already discovered such charms either kept extremely still in their seats, or flushed slightly. Hermione managed to do neither, but she thought she detected a slight warming of Theodore’s freckled cheeks. Interesting. She’d not known him to have shown any romantic interests, but then again, she’d had slightly more important things on her mind than who was sleeping with whom in sixth year. Except for Ron. She’d known exactly who he was sleeping with, and it had made her nearly mad with jealousy. That she’d been so petty over the business with Lavender - rest her soul - was something that still gnawed away at her. In the end, Hermione and Ron had been better off as friends anyway. She often wondered if Lavender would have been good for Ron in the long run. She’d never know now. 

Mechanically, she took down the enchantment at Professor Flitwick's request, and returned to her seat. 

“Used that one before have you, Granger?” a blond seventh year Slytherin seated on the second row leered. He reminded her so viscerally of Cormac McLaggen that her gut twisted unpleasantly. 

With her expression stony, she paused just behind him and replied in a voice just loud enough to carry, “Came in handy once or twice last year for evading snatchers, yes,” she said tartly before sitting down and glaring at her textbook. Malfoy said nothing nor looked at her. 

She snuck a sidelong look at him a minute or two later as Flitwick wrapped up the class, and saw that he was gripping his wand in his left hand so hard his knuckles had faded a few shades lighter than the rest of his skin, and a muscle in his jaw was pulsing. Theodore shuffled beside him and a moment later, the tension eased in Malfoy. He let out a long, slow breath through his nose and then Draco looked at her. The pain in his eyes - the open, unshielded, raw pain - stole her breath. Unthinkingly, she almost reached for his shoulder, but she caught herself in time and instead offered him a smile. ‘I forgave you’ she tried to convey with just her eyes. 

Malfoy’s face hardened again and he looked away. 

As the bell tolled for the end of class, he stood up and left without a word, shoving past Nott and leaving the room in a swirl of black robes. 

Hermione pulled a face and found that Nott was offering her a matching grimace. The rest of the class streamed out, but the two of them remained in the lecture room. 

“We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Hermione said, eyes on the doorway where Malfoy had vanished. “After everything… There are bound to be things that come up in class now — potions, spells…” she paused and said pointedly, “Even curses… which, you know, we’ve all used to get by in one way or another. Tell him…” Tell him what? “Never mind. Just — “ she let out another little frustrated huff and shook her head, curls bouncing wildly. Her last hair-tie had spontaneously snapped in the library and she now felt like a real Gryffindor lioness, wandering around with a wild, curly mane haloing her head. There were smoothing charms, but she didn’t fancy messing about with magic in the girls’ bathrooms. She’d done that before, with mixed success. “I’ll see you for patrols tonight,” she said, defeated. 

Nott nodded and stepped aside to let her pass out of the row first. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a huge thank you for supporting me with this, and for leaving me comments that feed and water my venomous tentacular and nourish my creative patronus!!!!


	4. ... illuminating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Theodore share an incident on patrol that both amuses them and brings them a step closer towards each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said this was a slow burn? You do? Good. Just... reminding you of that. 
> 
> This chapter was originally longer - 5k words in total - but I split it up and prolonged the slow burn even more. sorrynotsorry. Here we start to see a bit more of the characters of the three of them, and they continue their strange little dance around each other. Plus there's some understandable inter-house tensions between Nott and Ginny. 
> 
> Thank you again for the amazing feedback I got on the past chapters!! And to those of you asking me to 'update soon' and 'please update', fear not! Updates will continue fairly swiftly, if not on a set day of the week. Thank you again for your support, and I hope you enjoy this one. And don't forget that my short one-shot prompts are still open over on Tumblr too - [coffeestainsandcashmere](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com//).

Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table that evening, still mulling over Malfoy’s behaviour in Charms. 

It had been her mention of the snatchers that had prompted his expression to darken and his body to fill with tension, and she still couldn’t shake the way that he’d turned quiet and openly vulnerable under Theo’s gentle touch. Over the years she’d known him at Hogwarts, Malfoy had always seemed to viscerally sharp and prickly, so volatile and yet so cold, that realising he was apparently an extremely tactile person somehow felt like she’d taken a bludger to the head. Yet again she saw a boy who’d been isolated by circumstance, and not by choice, and she resolved to put a little more effort into bridging the gaping canyon that still existed between them. 

At supper that evening, Ginny rather predictably talked the ears off everyone at their end of the table about the Holyhead Harpies and their latest nail-biter of a match against the Wimbourne Wasps. Apparently she and the rest of the Gryffindor team had been glued to the wireless all afternoon during their various free periods. 

“…and then when Helena Abbington swept in at the last minute and stopped a bludger from hitting Wilkins, she and Elcomb only pulled off a bloody Porskoff Ploy so well that the Wasps didn’t even see the quaffle drop until it was too late!” Ginny enthused around a final mouthful of goulash. “Seriously, we were all —” she caught sight of Hermione’s politely bored face midway through taking a swig of pumpkin juice to wash down the clog of goulash, and snorted so hard that juice actually came out of her nose. “I’m sorry, ‘Mione,” she laughed, and Hermione’s chest panged at the unexpected use of Ron’s nickname for her. “I’m so sorry. Oh crap, did I get you with juice?” She dug out her wand. “Oh Godric, I’m sorry - scourgify - but you should have seen your face!” 

“The complexities of quidditch manoeuvres have never failed to entertain me, Ginny,” she said flatly. “I’m sorry.” Dinners in the Weasley household had been interminable on nights when someone got going on the subject. 

“No, it’s totally fine. Just remind me to cancel your subscription to Seeker Weekly that I set up for your birthday.” At the words ‘your birthday’, her eyes went wide and she shrieked, “Oh my Gryffindor! Your birthday! It’s… It’s…” 

“This Saturday,” she smiled sadly. Neither Ron nor Harry had mentioned coming down to see her, or meeting up in Hogsmeade, and she rather suspected that they might have forgotten. That stung more than she cared to admit. 

From behind her, a male voice drawled, “It’s your birthday, Granger?” 

Ginny’s expression soured immediately and her gaze shifted to a spot behind Hermione as she snarled, “Piss off, Nott. And whatever you’re thinking of doing to spoil it… don’t.” 

“Ginny!” Hermione exclaimed. “You’re Head Girl! You should be a little more impartial, don’t you think?” 

“Not when it comes to my best friends,” she pouted. Her mistrust of anyone even tangentially associated with Voldemort’s supporters was widely known, and Theodore took a polite half-step back, palms up, dark blue eyes widely innocent. Ginny continued to glare at him, but she did at least let him speak. 

“I’m not putting in a last-minute, bulk order to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes,” he smiled carefully. “I promise. I was just surprised you hadn't mentioned it on our patrols, that’s all. Listen, while we’re on the subject, Granger, I came over to tell you I’m going to be a bit late tonight. Can I meet you at nine up on the third floor?” 

Despite his usually abysmal time-keeping, Nott had surprisingly never been late to a patrol before, so she simply nodded. It wasn’t as if anything the students could throw at her would be more dangerous or daunting than everything she’d faced in the past three years. “Sure. Meet you by the painting of the drunk monks?” 

Nott’s handsome, slightly wonky smile split wide and white across his face, drawing dimples in his cheeks that made her stomach flutter, and he inclined his head. “Perfect. Thanks, Granger.” 

“You can call me Hermione, you know?” she said in a bit of a rush as he turned to leave, fighting another blush. 

He paused and then turned to look over his shoulder at her. “Then I insist that you stop calling me ‘Nott’,” he said with a very slight bow of his head. One of the tighter curls at the front of his chestnut brown hair flopped further forewords onto his forehead. “Call me Theo. Never Theodore.” And he shuddered visibly, his freckles standing out a little more as his cheeks paled for just a moment. 

“Right,” she said and then, because she fancied trying it out, she added, “Theo.” 

With one further and final brightening of that already blinding smile, presumably at the sound of his name on her lips, he strode away without explanation as to why he was going to be late, and Hermione turned back to see Ginny with her jaw practically dangling on the table. Even Neville looked a little stunned, as if he still didn’t believe his eyes, even after their conversation earlier that very day. 

“What?” she asked, the blush finally spilling across her cheeks, hot and tingling. 

“Since when are you so… ‘chummy’ with the Slytherins?” she asked acerbically. 

She blinked. “I didn’t realise it was a crime to be on good terms with one’s peers,” she sniffed defensively as everyone’s eyes seemed to bore into her. God, it reminded her of the courtroom and Malfoy’s trial. “Besides, he’s actually halfway decent, believe it or not.” 

Ginny looked like she’d swallowed a bubotuber whole. “Right,” she said. “Look… Hermione, I really don’t mean to be an arse about this, but… you do remember that he’s friends with Draco Malfoy, don’t you? You know, the boy who tried to kill Dumbledore and who let a bloody horde of Death Eaters into the castle who… you know, who ultimately helped to murder my brother…” Tears sparkled in her eyes as she glared at her. 

Her heart went out to the younger girl, but she wasn’t about to back down either. “I’m aware of Malfoy’s history, Ginny, and of who we all lost,” she said, trying to keep her voice from rising and quavering. “I’m not… I’m not saying they’re perfect by any means, but… I’d like to give them a chance. Both of them. Theo was cleared of any involvement, and Malfoy was tried and released on probation, remember?” 

Ginny’s eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. “Tell that to Fred!” she hissed, standing from the table and storming away. 

Hermione took a deep breath and glanced around at the audience their little tussle had gathered amongst the Gryffindors. “What?” she snapped, pushing herself to her feet and disentangling her legs from the bench. “You heard McGonagall at the start of term. And we can’t keep treating everyone like criminals.” Her heart was racing, blood pounding in her ears. Why didn’t they understand? Why did they all think it was still ‘us’ and ‘them’? “We just can’t live like that!” she said shrilly, and she stalked from the hall in Ginny’s wake, tears blurring her vision. 

She’d always hated the fact that she wore her heart on her sleeve like this, emotions always boiling right up to the surface at a moment’s notice when she wished she could remain calm and collected instead of going off like a powder keg. It was something she’d always admired about the people who tended to be sorted into Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Then again, she’d almost been sorted into Ravenclaw, so perhaps it had nothing to do with houses at all and everything to do with her own inability to control her emotions. She’d have made a terrible occlumens. 

As the arched entrance to the great hall approached, still in a bit of a blur, she crashed headlong into someone who also happened to be leaving the hall at the same time. A flash of white hair registered in her peripheral vision as Malfoy of all people steadied her with one pale and surprisingly strong hand. He then released her and stepped back. 

“Granger?” he asked in a low, softly-articulated purr, taking in the sheen to her eyes and the colour in her cheeks. He shot a glance back over his shoulder at the table where several astounded Gryffindors were still staring after her, and then turned his fierce, silver gaze back to her. 

“I’m sorry, Malfoy,” she hissed, desperate not to prolong the fuss. “I’m fine. Thank you.” And with that, she fled to Gryffindor tower to curl up with a book by the common room fire until it was time for her patrol. She didn’t see Ginny again, and later that evening when she nipped up to their dorm to grab her thicker cloak to ward off the castle’s wandering drafts, the drapes of Ginny’s four-poster were pointedly shut. 

The first half of her solo rounds passed without much incident and she found the solitude strangely grounding as she paced the empty halls. Ginny’s grief at the loss of her older brother was still so raw and close to the surface, and Hermione could certainly see how a friendship - however tentative - with a Slytherin like Theodore Nott would have been anathema to her. Ginny may have been fair and a good choice for a head of school, but when it came to blood ties, the Weasleys were a fiercely loyal family. Hermione had not been present when Molly Weasley had killed Bellatrix, but to hear any of them tell it, Molly had turned into something akin to an avenging banshee to defend her daughter from the deranged Death Eater. 

Near the library she found two first years sneaking about on a dare and deducted a cautionary five points from Hufflepuff to warn them off trying anything again, and moved on towards the third floor. She met Nearly Headless Nick and paused to chat with him at length on one of the few static staircases before spotting Mrs. Norris’ tail disappearing around a corner. The satisfaction she felt at not having to be afraid of that sight boosted her mood somewhat. She moved on through the castle like a stray draft, belonging and yet still disconnected; she knew the place inside out, and yet it still felt strange to her to be back here again after everything, with barely a blast or scorch mark on the stones to speak of what had happened scarcely four months earlier. 

Just as she reached the third floor and rounded a corner, she paused. A feminine giggle echoed down the hall, followed by a quickly hushed groan. 

Perfect. 

Of all the things she found herself dealing with as a prefect - sleepwalking, sneaking about, dares into the Restricted Section - illicit encounters by moonlight were probably her least favourite. Everyone needed some kind of connection, some kind of… release… but rules were rules after all, and although Hogwarts was probably the safest place in the world once more, it still didn’t do to be wandering the halls at night. 

Inhaling deeply, she stepped out with the intention of interrupting them and sending them packing with twenty points from each house, when a warm, dry palm slid over her mouth from behind her. Before she could squeal or hex her assailant into the middle of last week, Theodore Nott shifted silently into her field of vision, with the finger of his other hand pressed against his smirking lips. 

“Theo,” she hissed like a disgruntled Crookshanks when he released her, and he grinned wider, dimples and all. “Merlin and Morgana! You scared me!” 

With a very quiet, earthy chuckle that sent heat rushing right the way through her, he twitched his eyebrows down the corridor. “Who is it then?” 

“As if I should know from one breathy little giggle!” she scoffed, still somehow keeping her voice down despite her indigence. 

He actually had extremely nice hands, she thought, trying not to look at them, and that then realisation made her cheeks flush and her heart flutter. While Malfoy had the hands of a potion master, steady and long-fingered, Theo had the hands of a scholar, all ink stained and slightly knuckly. She scolded herself for fixating on her classmates’ hands - now of all times - and rounded on him defensively. 

“Come on,” she said. “Now that you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. And what were you doing — if I might ask — that was so much more important than your duties as a prefect?” 

“Tutoring third years,” he said casually as he turned to face the length of the corridor. “Arithmancy. They’re terrible. An absolute disgrace to Slytherin. Now, come on, let’s have some fun. I reckon they’re behind that tapestry halfway down. You know, the one with that coat of arms and the randy unicorn.” 

Theodore Nott tutored students? 

She froze, staring at him with a look of incredulous amusement on her face, trying to imagine him teaching. Actually, that didn’t help her situation at all and she quickly abandoned the image before it took hold. “It’s ‘rampant’, not ‘randy’,” she finally croaked, which only made him snicker softly. Of course he knew that. Flustered at having allowed herself to be goaded by him, she added, “So you’re familiar with that hiding place then, Nott? You’ve been caught there before, have you?” 

“A gentleman never tells,” he said and strode off before she could stop gawping like a landed fish. 

He flicked his wand at the huge tapestry and it peeled slowly back like a theatre curtain to expose the two mortified fifth years entangled within the alcove. Mercifully they were mostly dressed, just a little rumpled, and she and Nott sent the pair on their way with only ten points from Ravenclaw and ten from Gryffindor. Hermione would never be able to look the girl in the face again. 

As the fifth years scuttled off like startled beetles, Theo turned to her and let the tapestry fall back into place. The ridiculousness of it caught up with them at the same time, and they both burst out laughing, the sound of it ringing on the cold stone of the corridor. It was a relief to laugh, she realised as her eyes watered and she felt giddy and light for the first time in weeks. She put her hand on the rough stonework of the wall beside the tapestry and let her body shake with it. 

“You’re telling me you’ve n-never been caught like that, Granger?” Theo said once his own laughter had died down. He still had those delicious dimples though, and his eyes glittered. 

Her face flushed hot and she remembered a few stolen kisses here and there, and once significantly more, with Viktor Krum. 

Theo’s eyebrows expressed a very keen interest, and she began examining the needlework of the tapestry with sudden focus. 

“Well, well,” he said. “I’m not going to pry, but that’s a very interesting train of thought you’ve given me, Granger.” 

“Oh?” she said archly, half turning to look back at him over her shoulder and daring him to continue that with flashing eyes, despite the colour in her cheeks. 

“Mm.” 

“And who was it that you were caught sneaking about with then?” 

Theo absolutely refused to say with whom he’d been caught, and in what state of undress, and by the time they reached the end of their patrol route, she’d stopped prodding at him for answers. He was a Slytherin after all, and did not divulge secrets willingly. 

“Any plans for your birthday, Granger?” he asked conversationally as they made their way back towards the grand staircase. She didn’t have to accompany him, but hadn’t felt like returning yet. “You’ll be nineteen, right?” 

A stray draft tugged at her hair and she shivered. With a shrug and a nod, she said, “No plans really. I’ll see what happens and play it by ear.” 

“When is it again?” he asked, pace slowing as his eyebrows drew together into a little frown. 

“Saturday.” 

“No plans with Potter and Weasley?” he asked and when she shrugged again, his expression soured just a fraction more. 

As they passed by a painting of a wizard, who looked remarkably like Charlie Weasley, wrangling a Hungarian Horntail, the dragon gave a shriek that made her jump. Theo chuckled softly and she felt her insides heat up all over again at the sound of it. 

“Slytherin and Gryffindor quidditch try outs are this Saturday,” he said, sounding a little regretful, though she couldn’t figure out why. 

“You don’t even play quidditch,” she scoffed, happy to have moved away from the topic of Harry and Ron. 

“Draco does. He’s going for seeker, remember?” 

“Oh, of course. He’ll probably get it too - he’s apparently quite good.” 

“Mm. Prodigious. You should see him now. He trains practically every morning.” 

She thought about the lone flyer she’d seen and wondered if that had been Malfoy. It seemed likely, but she didn’t bring it up. “Ginny asked me to come along, but…” she grimaced. “It’s really not my thing.” 

“Really?” Theo snorted sarcastically, turning to look at her from one step ahead. He was still taller than her by a long shot, even then. “I had no idea that you didn’t enjoy quidditch, Granger. It’s not as if you’ve r-ranted extensively and effusively about how ridiculous you think the whole game is on a number of our patrols this term…” 

She punched him on the arm and he just laughed and skipped jauntily down the staircase as he headed back to the Slytherin Dungeons for the night. 

“See you tomorrow, Granger,” was all he said as he left, waving jauntily over one shoulder without looking back. 

Hermione didn’t watch him go. Instead, she turned and glared at the Horntail in the painting as she passed, and then stumped back up to Gryffindor tower, feeling oddly conflicted. Patrols weren’t supposed to be this much fun. They were supposed to be sensible and practical, like books, but… then again, books could also be a lot of fun. It had been such a long time since she’d really allowed herself to even dream about anything so flippant as her interest in the opposite sex. Theo’s dimples kept drifting back into her thoughts, and even the silver eyes of Theo’s best friend. Once or twice, when they went soft and even gentle, she’d even thought Malfoy startlingly attractive. He still looked haunted and tired, but he had lost a lot of the hard, jagged edges recently. 

With thoughts of a pair of puzzling Slytherins filling her head, she fell into bed and, for the first time in months, it didn’t even cross her mind to think about setting unnecessary wards. Her head hit the pillow and she fell deeply asleep. 


	5. Something to think about

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione makes up with Ginny again, and is then given plenty to think about after a few revelations during and after a double potions class partnered with Theo. Draco remains distant and wary, but Theo seems determined to haul him into the limelight regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thanks for your comments and kudos! This story originally started out as a vague idea in my head about the three of them getting together in 8th year, and is now taking wing and flying away, far beyond the scope I'd originally intended. As such, I've got about 30k words written (most of it in the form of snippets from later on in the timeline because that's just how I write, unfortunately), and it's mostly plotted out in full now. I still don't have a regular posting schedule planned, but it won't be too sparse, I promise. 
> 
> I'm loving your generous feedback - seriously, it's giving me such life. Some of you love the pacing and the way that Hermione is warming up to the two Slytherins, others seem dubious that she would trust Malfoy or Nott so soon. To that, I would say that she's been through a lot, she's now relatively isolated, and she's had the chance to examine things from a bit of a distance. I think she also recognises that Draco was still a child when he was put through the horrors of Voldemort's reign, and that behind his acerbic facade, he's probably still extremely traumatised by everything. He's just never had a healthy outlet for any of his feelings. Plus this is kind of AU-ish anyway, so... creative liberties???
> 
> Anyway, enough waffle. Here's the second part of yesterday's chapter that got divided into two because it was a whopper at over 6k words when I'd finished it. It's not been edited as extensively as the others, but it's too hot here in the UK at the moment in my little study (30C and I'm melting and have no window) so... *flings it at you and collapses in a puddle*
> 
> I can't wait to hear what you think of how things are going, and also where you think they might be headed!!! (also if you squint, there's some smut on the horizon, but not in this chapter). Also there's a nod to the person who mentioned the Greengrass sisters in this one. Thank you, lovely!

Hermione drew back the curtain of her four-poster to find that Ginny was also just getting up, her hair a tangled, tousled mess on one side, and her cheek lined with pillow creases. Gentle morning light filtered in through the warped glass of the leaded window beside her, making the vibrant red of her hair stand out all the more in the Gryffindor-red dormitory. 

The moment she spotted Hermione stirring too, Ginny opened her mouth, but before she could say whatever it was, Hermione barrelled over the top of her with an apology. “Ginny, I’m so sorry about yesterday. I was insensitive, and —” 

“Godric, Hermione,” Ginny laughed, rolling her eyes, “I’m the one who nearly bit your head off at the table!” 

“You had every right,” Hermione countered quietly, running her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to tame it. “I understand why you were upset.” 

Ginny came over and plonked herself down on Hermione’s bed, drawing her legs up and hugging her knees. She swallowed thickly and then shot her friend a sidelong look and sighed heavily. “I spoke to George yesterday morning while everyone was at breakfast,” she said and Hermione’s stomach dropped. “He… He wasn’t doing so well, and it brought it all back.” 

Hermione put her arm around Ginny’s shoulders and hugged her close. With everything freshly dredged up again, it was no wonder she’d reacted the way she had to Hermione’s growing closeness to a Slytherin, and her thoughts on attempting to move on. They’d only lost Fred four months ago, right here in the castle. 

“I miss him so much,” she choked. “It still doesn’t feel real. I keep expecting him to come round a corner with George or something…” 

“I know.” 

Neither of them moved for a little while, but Ginny finally snuffled a bit and Hermione drew back. “So…” Ginny said sceptically. “Nott really isn't a complete arsehole?” 

She shook her head, curls bouncing everywhere. “He doesn't seem to be, no.” 

“Huh.” Her mind was clearly still on the topic of the company the Slytherin kept, because a moment later she raised an eyebrow and asked, “I suppose not all Slytherins are terrible. Astoria Greengrass is actually quite nice. She’s in Charms with me.” After a moment she added, “What about… Malfoy?” 

Hermione hadn’t had the time - or quite frankly the inclination - to think about anything from his point of view before his trial, but now that she was back here and only really had her classes to focus on, she had found herself studying her fellow ‘eighth years’ a little more closely. There were only a handful of them, and only three in Slytherin had deigned to return for their N.E.W.T.s. Of Hermione’s own already limited circle of friends, there was just Neville and Luna, though she was a year younger. Beyond that, only Padma Patil, Ernie Macmillian, Anthony Goldstein, Hannah Abbott, Daphne Greengrass, Theodore Nott, and Draco Malfoy had returned to finish off their studies formally. Everyone else was out there living their lives already, rebuilding, and trying to move on however they could. 

Realising she’d been quiet for a bit too long, Hermione shrugged. “I actually haven’t had much to do with Malfoy this term, beyond the occasional partnering with him in class. He’s definitely different though.” She recalled how sickly she’d thought Malfoy in her sixth year, how gaunt he’d been and thought again about the immense pressure he must have been under on all sides… “He never volunteers any information in class now, and I don’t think I’ve seen him speak to anyone other than Theo… and perhaps Daphne Greengrass once or twice, though I’m not taking any of the same classes as her.” After another pause, she ventured, “Hagrid said he actually went to apologise to him.” 

“You’re shitting me?” 

“Nope.” 

Ginny looked like she’d been slapped. “Huh. Too bad he hasn’t extended the same courtesy to us yet…” 

Hermione shrugged. “Maybe he’s working up to it,” she said with knowingly generous optimism, and Ginny snorted. “We Gryffindors can be rather intimidating, you know?” she added playfully and Ginny grinned at her. The warmth and genuine amusement in that smile went some way to reassuring Hermione that, fundamentally, Ginny would be alright in the end. Behind the weight of grief, she was still the same playful, fierce, loyal, loving friend she had come to know. Their friendship was mostly through their mutual connections to Ron and Harry rather than in its own right, but recently they’d become a little closer. 

“Too bloody right we’re intimidating,” Ginny agreed. “Come on, I’m starving. Let’s go down to breakfast,” she said as she pushed herself off Hermione’s bed. She paused and looked back at her. “You might want to… uh… fix your hair a bit,” she said, eyeing Hermione’s bed-head of frizzy curls. 

“Likewise,” she snorted, reaching for a bottle of Sleakeasy’s on her bedside table. “You want some?” 

Down in the Great Hall, their respective manes just about tamed, Ginny slid a plate of chocolate croissants Hermione’s way and asked, “You sure you won’t come to tryouts on Saturday?” 

Halfheartedly sliding one off the platter and plucking it gently into pieces, she shook her head. “I think I’ll probably just use the time to get ahead with some homework.” 

“But it’s your birthday!” Ginny blurted, horrified. “You can’t do homework on your birthday! Plus it’s a weekend! If I didn’t have tryouts, I’d be throwing you a huge all-day party…” 

“Yes, because I really love big parties, Ginny,” she said with affectionate sarcasm. 

“A small three hour party?” Ginny asked hopefully, pouring Hermione some more tea before topping up her own mug. 

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll come down to the common room at three. Don’t do anything embarrassing.” 

Ginny grinned and it went absolutely nowhere towards reassuring her. She was a Weasley after all, and they were all prone to shenanigans, if not pranks. “Better make it four. The Slytherin team is holding their tryouts in the morning, and Gryffindor’s up after lunch, but I should be done by half three.” 

With another gentle eye roll, she nodded. “Fine.” 

“Great. I’ve got a plan…” 

In double Potions later that morning, Hermione found herself paired with Theo for the brewing of a volubilis potion. It seemed that after their playful patrol the night before, the two had inched a little closer towards something that might be called friendship, and although he rarely strayed from polite remarks and the vaguest hint of teasing banter, she got the distinct impression he wanted to open up a little more. 

Malfoy was the only one in the class without a partner, sitting at a bench on his own since there was an odd number that day, and he wasn’t exactly anyone’s first choice. Besides, he was good enough at potions that he probably didn’t need a partner anyway. Except, he was usually Theo’s first choice of course, but something wordless had passed between them as they’d entered the Potions dungeon together and their gazes - one sapphire, the other mercury - had sought her out at the same time. Apparently as a result, Theo had returned Malfoy’s little nod and made a beeline for her table, while Malfoy had seated himself at the bench on the end without comment. She didn’t ask, and the potion they were focusing on that day was a complicated one. Done correctly, it would change the way a person’s voice sounded, but any mistakes and it could leave the vocal cords permanently damaged at best; completely corroded away at worst. 

“Now,” Slughorn chirped as they neared the end of the intricate brewing process an hour and a half later. “If you wish to alter your voice to that of someone specific, remember that the volubilis potion will work in much the same way as a polyjuice potion once it’s reached this stage. It’ll still function as it is without any additions, but the effects will be somewhat more random. Go ahead and try it out. I’m satisfied that all of you have produced the correct formula, though some of them might taste a little funny,” he added with a sceptical glance into Padma and her partner Emma’s cauldron. “And don’t worry - I have the antidote here so that you don’t have to go into lunch sounding like your Potions partner, or perhaps a surprised doxy.” He chortled to himself at that and let them continue. 

Hermione looked up at Theo across the gold-tinged fumes rising from their finished potion, and he grinned a slow-dawning, feral smile at her. “Granger,” he purred. 

“Nott…” she smiled back warily, mirroring his tone. He clearly wanted to switch voices with her and she found that she actually wasn’t averse to the notion. 

“Come on,” he said, raising the sharp, delicate scissors to his forelock and snipping off a single hair as she ladled a tiny amount of the syrupy potion into the two cups in front of her. 

He dropped the hair into her cup and they watched it dissolve completely while he stirred it with a glass rod. He had purple ink on his knuckles that day, she tried not to note. To distract herself, she cut a few inches off the end of a single hair of her own and placed it into his potion. 

They chinked cups as if they were celebrating at the Three Broomsticks after a quidditch match, and then downed it. 

It had a slightly minty taste, sweet from the honeywater and with a bitter aftertaste from the mandrake root. She looked at Theo and waited for him to unleash whatever delightful torment he had planned. It never even struck her as odd that she trusted him not to humiliate her, but she did expect a fairly decent ribbing, almost the way she’d got used to from Harry and Ron. 

“I’m Hermione Granger,” Theo cooed a moment later in her voice, bringing his fingers dramatically to his collarbone and flouncing his imaginary hair about with the other. “And I’m smart and beautiful and there’s literally n-nothing in the world I don’t know.” 

She flushed hot and looked down at her notebook on the table. 

“What?” Theo-with-Hermione’s-voice asked innocently. “Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t all be on our knees before you? Oh Gryffindor goddess? Oh Golden Girl of the legendary —” 

She had to shut him up. Of all the things he could have said, she hadn’t expected him to embarrass her with praise and flattery. “That’s not —” she snorted, but she stopped abruptly as Theo’s own voice sounded from her throat. “Well,” she said, touching her fingers to her neck. “That’s interesting.” 

Theo paused and offered her a crooked smile, one dimple pinching his cheek. “Having fun there, Granger?” he said. “Discovering all the joys of my sultry tones…? Oh the things my voice can do, Hermione… If only you knew the power you held right n-now…” and to his surprise, he shot a look sideways at Malfoy. 

She followed his gaze and her eyebrows rose. The apples of Malfoy’s cheeks had flushed an unexpected pink and he was glowering into his potion as if it were a draft of living death. “Just because I’ve currently got the silky voice of a well-spoken prat,” she grumbled, “Doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it.” 

Theo leaned in close, the golden fumes of the potion illuminating the coppery highlights in his curly hair like fairy dust, and he said in a stage whisper that carried perfectly across the room and over the bubble of all six cauldrons, “Anything filthy you want to say, love, I suggest you say it now.” 

“Before you go ahead and say it in my voice instead, you mean?” she smirked, still feeling very strange about speaking in Theo’s husky baritone. 

Theo’s eyes rolled slightly but he didn’t exactly look exasperated. He glanced over his shoulder and caught Malfoy’s eye, opening his mouth, but before Theo could say anything, Malfoy raised the long, pale index finger of his left hand and pointed it threateningly at Theo before carefully drawling, “Do. Not.” 

All three of them froze. 

The low voice that came pouring out of Malfoy’s lips like liquid silk was so eerily similar to Severus Snape’s that it chilled her blood. 

Even Malfoy seemed shaken, and whatever Theo had been going to say in jest died on his tongue. Instead, he left Hermione at their bench and went over to Malfoy’s while Slughorn was occupied in trying to stop some Hufflepuff seventh year from hyperventilating with laughter in the corner. She and her partner both sounded like hysterical chipmunks, and the laughter was only making it worse. 

What the two boys whispered together, she couldn’t be sure, but Malfoy finally offered Theo a heartbreakingly gentle smile and her insides writhed almost painfully at the tenderness of the exchange. She suddenly got the striking impression that there was more between them than mere friendship, her gaze snagging on the lingering way their fingertips brushed against each other’s on the desk, and Theo even swiped a lock of Malfoy’s white hair off his forehead and out of his glassy grey eyes. 

She knew that Malfoy had known Theo since they were children, but that seemed to run deeper than just long-term familiarity. The whole exchange was so achingly gentle, so intimately private despite the location, and so completely at odds with the sharp edges of Draco Malfoy with which she was familiar by now, that she felt like an intruder, standing there gaping openly at them, as further proof of his naturally tactile nature played out before her astonished eyes. This was the second time she’d witnessed him quieting like a skittish horse under Theo's touch. 

Immediately, she busied herself in tidying up, bustling about and clinking jars and bottles noisily. 

Professor Slughorn came round with volubilis antidotes a minute or two later, and she chugged hers down the second he gave it to her. “That’s better,” she said as her own warm alto sounded in her ears. 

“Missing me already?” Theo said, still in her own voice, though he held a glass of antidote ready in one hand. 

She hadn’t noticed him return to their bench, and she jumped a bit as he spoke. She just shook her head mutely. 

He downed his own antidote and then cleared his throat. “You alright?” 

She nodded. “Quite alright.” 

She wasn’t quite alright. Seeing Draco Malfoy being downright affectionate with someone was… unnerving. His long fingers had trailed over Theo’s knuckles like… well, like a lover’s touch. 

“You look —” Theo began, but whatever she looked like, he didn’t get the chance to tell her, because the contents of Padma’s cauldron were suddenly spilling all over her and her partner’s bench in a tidal wave of sweet-smelling potion, covering the Ravenclaws’ notes and drowning everything in volubilis potion. The upended cauldron rolled on the desk and potion began to drip onto the floor and seep towards Theo’s smart, black shoes in a glistening, viscous tide. 

“Careful, careful!” Slughorn scolded, scuttling over and vanishing the remnants of the potion with a flick of his wand. “No harm done, no harm done, but be grateful that wasn’t an erumpment potion!” he added. “Right, well, that’s it for today. Finish tidying up and I’ll let you go a few minutes early. Don’t forget that I want that calculations sheet by next Monday.” 

“You headed to lunch, Granger?” Theo asked as he stashed his books into his leather shoulder bag and hefted its weight so that it sat more comfortably. 

She nodded. 

“May we accompany you?” he asked with a playful tone that somehow didn’t feel in the least bit mocking. 

“Sure,” she smiled, and her eyes drifted over to Malfoy who had drifted over to stand like a silent, pale spectre beside him, gaze locked on the flagstone floor. “You don’t mind?” she asked him. 

Malfoy swallowed thickly, looking reticent about using his voice despite having had the antidote. “‘Mind’, Granger?” he asked with an affected drawl that lacked all its usual sting. 

She shrugged. “You don’t exactly seem all that keen to hang around with me,” she said, trying not to sound sniffy. She didn’t want to pressure him to be near her if it made him uncomfortable after all. 

Malfoy’s shoulders dropped an inch or so, and he suddenly looked extremely tired. “It’s not that I mind, Granger. I really don’t. Let’s go before Slughorn turns us into potions ingredients, or ropes us all into some dire new club of his.” 

Being made to endure another Slug Club dinner was about as appealing as being pickled and put in a jar, so she nodded and scurried out of the room with Theo and Malfoy behind her. 

Outside in the corridor, Theo walked beside her, and Malfoy on Theo's other side. He had folded his arms across his body, clutching two textbooks so tightly to his chest that his knuckles bleached white from the strain. His jaw was set and a tendon stood out in his neck. 

Theo shot him a look too and jabbed him with his elbow. “Lighten up, Drake, or she’ll think you’ve still got a wand up your arse about everything.” 

“I do not need to think about what may or may not be up Malfoy’s arse,” she joked lightly, and the laughing tone to her inuendo made Theo snort and then guffaw. 

“Told you she’s not as much of a prude as you’d think,” he said conversationally to Malfoy when he’d recovered. Malfoy had turned crimson. “Plus, she practically admitted to me on patrol last night that she’s been caught in flagrante delicto in the corridors by a prefect.” 

“I’ll try not to take that first bit the wrong way. And you admitted as much - if not more - to me, Nott” she said curtly, and watched Malfoy’s mouth part with horror and his eyes widen while the deep, scarlet flush in his cheeks spread down his neck. She nearly fell up the stairs from the dungeons in shock. Surely Malfoy hadn’t been the one… Well. 

Theo tipped his head back and crowed another laugh that echoed off the vaulted ceiling and made several portraits hiss at him to keep it down. He did nothing of the sort. 

He leaned over and whispered in Hermione’s ear as they hit the top of the staircase and headed for the great hall, “That’ll give that brilliant mind of yours something to think about, eh, Granger?” 

Malfoy thumped him hard on the upper arm and they parted ways before she could formulate a response, each heading for their respective tables, while Malfoy still sported a vibrant blush and Hermione pursed her lips. 

Yes. Yes it most certainly would. 


	6. Birthday surprise(s) - Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione's birthday starts inauspiciously and ends... well. You'll see for yourself how it ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for some PTSD and nightmares right off the bat. And finally here’s that ‘Mature’ tag too, right at the end of the chapter :) 
> 
> Note: does the Wizarding world have birthday cards??? They do in this story, and like wizardy photographs, they move. If I goofed up and this isn’t a thing, please just accept it as another AU element :). There’s also a reference to an old British store chain in there, so kudos to you if you spot it. 
> 
> I hope this chapter is ok - I’ve actually got a retinal migraine at the moment and have lost the sight in most of my central field of vision, so editing it one last time was a bit… hit and miss, let’s say. Anyway, thank you for your feedback on previous chapters too! Looking forward to your reactions to this one for sure…

Hermione woke in the early hours of her birthday with a scream. 

_The snatchers had her. Hands all over her, couldn’t break free, thrashing, struggling, writhing._

_Sweating, she twisted and sheared their grasp away from her arm for a second and ran, lungs burning, legs trembling. One fall over an unseen root and that would be it. The war could be lost if they got caught now._

_He would win._

_And Harry would die. Oh God, they couldn’t lose. Not now. Not after everything._

_The forest was closing in._

_She had only seconds to think, to disguise Harry, to keep them from snatching him and knowing who he was. “I’m sorry,” she hissed as the stinging jinx took hold of his face and it began to swell._

_More hands on her. Unrelenting this time. There was no escape._

_Darkness._

_Rushing darkness of forced apparition._

_Yew hedges and an iron gate that thrummed with wards and enchantments._

_Bellatrix’s awful, gleeful face._

_Then pain._

_Fear and pain unending._

_Silver eyes staring, wide and horrified._

_Screaming._

_Screaming, screaming,_ screaming… 

Jerking awake violently, with sweat running down between her breasts and tracking down her torso, hair a damp, tangled nest, and throat raw, she thanked all her magical forebears, starting with Merlin and Morgana, that she’d had the sense the previous night to cast a silencing enchantment again between the four posts of her bed. The rest of the dorm slept on. Ginny was even snoring. 

Her heart was still pounding and she looked over at the window, the dawn still a good hour away at least. 

The faint grey light filtering through the leaded window beside her bed reminded her of Draco’s eyes from her dream. 

He’d been there that night and had been forced to watch his own aunt carve that word into her forearm after god-knows-how-long of cruciatus torture. Had he always looked as revolted by it all as he had just then in her dream? She’d had it so many times now that she could no longer distinguish memory from nightmare. Her skin itched and burned but she refused to look down and stare at the word ‘mudblood’ engraved into her skin. 

“Happy birthday,” she muttered under her breath before getting out of bed and inhaling deeply. The air in the room was cold, and goosebumps prickled along her skin as she reached for her Gryffindor red dressing-gown that had been a present from her parents on a birthday a few years ago. 

She stood and went to the window, opening the casement which squeaked like an affronted gnome, but still no one stirred or complained. Damp, autumn air flooded in, sweeping around her and cooling the sweat on the exposed skin of her collarbones til she shivered, but it slowly helped to calm her heartbeat. Her eyes roved along the lines of the mountains that surrounded the school. “Nineteen,” she mused with a sigh. “Nineteen years old, and my parents no longer have any idea that I’ve ever existed.” 

Kingsley had said there was still a chance that the memory-altering spell could be reversed, but it had been so powerful that it risked destroying their minds altogether, and she hadn’t had the courage to give him the okay to try. They were happy and safe as Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and would probably stay that way forever thanks to the strength of the charm she’d used. She couldn’t regret protecting her parents, but the necessity of it brought tears to her eyes every time. 

She didn’t feel nineteen. What was it supposed to feel like anyway? Besides, what normal nineteen year old was still at Hogwarts? Most of the rest of her year was out there, beyond those mountains. Seamus was in Auror training with Harry, and Dean was apparently working in the Goblin Liaison Office after his surprising and enduring friendship with Griphook, while a number of others were in a similar line of work, patching up holes where Death Eaters had exposed their world to the muggles, or training with magical creatures, or working in bars, or travelling the world — Blaise Zabini was rumoured to be in Portugal working with the authorities there, and she’d even heard a rumour that he was engaged to Pansy Parkinson, though she found it hard to believe. Blaise had always seemed the type not to be interested in romantic attachments. Perhaps it was a pureblood thing? 

With an enormous sigh, she abandoned thoughts of purebloods, and turned away from the window to find a small parcel sitting by the little fireplace in their dorm, with two envelopes beside it. She frowned and stepped closer, her heart leaping for joy when she recognised both Harry’s minuscule writing and Ron’s untidy scribble. 

Sitting cross legged by the empty hearth, she ripped Harry’s envelope open first and discovered, to her delight, a muggle birthday card with a hideously gaudy badge on it, sporting a cartoon birthday cake. She carefully unpinned it from the front and set it to one side to attach to the drapes of her four-poster. Inside it read: 

_‘Dear Hermione,_

_I’m sorry I haven’t written to you! I’ve been so busy and I can’t really tell you about any of it yet. I loved your letters though, and I’m not surprised you’re so busy. Please remember to stop every now and again, won’t you? Hope you have a great day full of surprises!_

_Love,_

_Harry x’_

She narrowed her eyes at the ‘full of surprises’ bit, hoping that he hadn’t told Ginny to do something very Weasley-esque and embarrassing, and then opened Ron’s card. Their friendship had been somewhat strained since they broke up, and Fred’s death had understandably brought out his more morose side in the last few months, but she was pleased that he’d remembered. His had a silly cartoon of a dragon lighting a birthday cupcake with a gout of flame that incinerated the whole thing before the dragon looked out at the viewer and shrugged before the image looped around again. She was honestly just relieved that it wasn’t some kind of new exploding card from the joke shop. 

_‘Dear Mione’_ it began. She squinted and peered at the next lines. Gods, he could have worked for the Ministry in their Department of Mysteries, encrypting messages for them. 

_‘Dear Mione,_

_Happy Birthday! Sorry I haven’t come to see you yet but hopefully it won’t be too long. Promise not to bring any skiving snack-boxes for you…_

_Love,_

_Ron’_

In the quiet of the four-person dorm, with only the soft whisper of three sleepers and the whisper of the wind outside, Hermione smiled. They might have been terrible at keeping in touch, but her friends did still care after all. It wasn’t that she’d doubted them necessarily, but the silence had still stung. 

She picked up the parcel next and unwrapped a small box of sherbet lemons from Harry with a label bearing his tiny handwriting that said: _‘Got these for you from Woolworths pick ‘n’ mix. Thought you’d like them. H x’._

Tears filled her eyes and the bright yellow sweets swam before her. She thought back to her very muggle childhood - a fact she shared with Harry, though hers had been a little happier on the domestic front - and also thought of Dumbledore, who had famously had a great penchant for the sour boiled sweets. Despite having dentists for parents, she had always loved these, but even now as she guiltily unwrapped one, she felt like a child sneakily opening a present on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. It tasted amazing, and it brought back so many memories. 

Hours later, turning another sweet over between her tongue and teeth, she dressed and headed down to breakfast without waking Ginny or the other two seventh years and breakfasted alone at the Gryffindor table well before the post owls arrived. She didn’t fancy advertising that it was her birthday, drawing attention to the fact that she was older than almost any other student ever had been in the entire history of Hogwarts. Probably. That was one she’d have to look up in Hogwarts: A History when she got back upstairs. 

Thoughts of the book, and whereabouts she could look in the various chapters for such a reference, evaporated as she left the hall after breakfast, and spotted Theo and Draco eating together at one end of the table. Ahead of the Slytherin tryouts that morning, Draco was dressed in his quidditch gear, and - damn him - and he looked… he looked regal. His white hair gleamed, the soft wave to it making him look much less harsh now, and as he and Theo shared a conversation, he even managed a brief laugh that lit up his silver eyes and lifted the tiredness from his sharp features. He’d grown into that pinched, pointy face, she realised, and he now looked strikingly handsome when he smiled. 

While she continued to stare at them, Theo held up a grape and Draco rolled his eyes but let Theo pop it into his mouth. 

Hermione walked right into the stone doorway of the entrance arch and rebounded with a soft grunt, face burning and mind reeling. Burning with shame, she scuttled across the entrance hall and had just set foot to the first tread of the Great Staircase when a familiar voice echoed off the stonework. 

“Granger!” 

She froze and then turned around. Malfoy was standing in the archway to the Great Hall, and the full sight of him in his quidditch kit nearly knocked her breathless. How had she not appreciated just how tall he’d grown or how good he looked in that rich, dark Slytherin green before? It complemented the silver of his hair and the paleness of his skin so perfectly that she almost forgot that he’d spoken and called her name. 

“Yes?” she croaked. 

He swallowed and crossed towards her, holding two small envelopes in his left hand. He proffered them to her between index and middle fingers, and swallowed again. “Happy Birthday, Granger,” he said in a soft, slightly husky voice. 

She stared at them envelopes stupidly for a second and then gingerly took them from him. “They’re not howlers, are they?” she asked, aiming for a light tone. 

He shook his head and a section of his silver hair fell into his eyes before he brushed it back. “No, Granger. No tricks. Just two birthday cards.” 

“Thank you, Malfoy,” she said, oddly choked. She saw Theo’s writing on the front of the top one, and assumed the other was from Malfoy. “That’s… That’s really sweet of you.” 

He rolled his eyes and turned away, shaking his head. “I’ll pass on your thanks to Theo,” was all he said as he retreated. She watched him go, eyeing his narrow hips and long legs, and she gulped. That was the closest she’d come to getting an apology from him, and she could recognise it for the white flag it was. He was clearly trying. 

She smiled and turned them over in her hand. 

Her fingers trembled as she broke the green wax seal, blank and un-stamped, she noted, and opened the first one then and there in the liminal entrance hall. It might have felt somehow symbolic if she’d paused to give it any thought. 

Draco’s card bore a moving image of a set of floor-to-ceiling library shelves, a few of the books sliding in and out at irregular intervals, as if drawn out for examination by invisible fingers, and a ginger kneazel’s tail flickered into view in the bottom corner every so often. He’d noticed Crookshanks then? Not only that, but he’d noticed Crookshanks from years ago and had remembered him? Surely it wasn’t a coincidence. Malfoy never did anything without a purpose. His message inside was simple, but it was his handwriting that made her eyebrows rise. 

It was _terrible_ ; almost illegible. Even worse than Ron’s. 

For some reason she’d always expected that he would have the curling, looping handwriting of a prince or something, but this was a barely-discernible chicken scratch, and was even a little smudged over his signature. 

_‘Hermione,_

_I hope today brings you every joy you deserve._

_Yours,_

_Draco Malfoy’_

She re-read it three times before she really saw it though, still shocked at receiving a birthday card from Draco Malfoy of all people. Another white flag. 

Taking a deep breath and deciding not to ponder it too long, lest she run into the danger of over thinking again, she moved to Theo’s which was written in a tidier and much more ornate hand. The script on this envelope was a perfect, fluid, graceful, English roundhand, like the kind she’d only seen on old parchment documents, and the ink was, surprisingly, purple. She recalled the smudges on his fingers from the other day and wondered if that was the Slytherin’s favourite colour. 

Theo’s card was also book-themed, but it bore an image of a battered old copy of ‘Advanced Potion Making’ beside a softly-steaming pewter cauldron. She smiled, reminded instantly of their last potions session and all the revelations it had carried with it, but she set that aside for the time being and read his message. She could almost hear him saying it, and she laughed aloud as she read it. 

_‘To the most perfect of_ _prefectorial_ _and potions partners,_

_I hope you have a wonderful day and that, should you wish it, your friends get you very, very drunk up in Gryffindor tower. Whatever you do, you deserve to have fun, Hermione, and I hope today of all days is full of it._

_Love,_

_Theo.’_

The difference between the two was striking. Malfoy’s was reserved and his writing seemed almost shy and awkward, whereas Theo’s reflected his usual, outgoing, charming self. Plus, he’d signed it ‘love’, though again, she tried not to read too much into it. 

She glanced up to find that both of them were looking at her from their distant seats at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Theo grinned and waved, but Malfoy just continued to stare at her with his expression carefully veiled. 

“Thank you,” she mouthed at them and Theo bowed his head rather theatrically. 

Before she could decide to go over them at strike up a conversation, Ginny bounded down the grand staircase behind her and barrelled into her, along with half the Gryffindor team at her heels, all buoyed up with excitement about tryouts, and the head girl tackle-hugged her almost into a headlock. “Happy birthday!” she screeched, setting Hermione’s ears ringing and the few students in the hall staring. “Did the owls come already then?” she asked when she saw the cards in her hand. 

She shook her head but didn’t elaborate. Ginny was too excited about the tryouts anyway. “Please come and watch us later,” she said. “Just for a bit? Oh, and I’ve got Harry’s and Ron’s cards for you! I put them out by the fireplace in our dorm…” 

“I found them already,” she smiled. “Thank you. But why didn’t they just owl them straight to me?” 

“They wanted to make sure they got here on time so they sent them together a few days ago with Harry’s new eagle owl. She’s huge! Anyway, please come?” she wheedled. “Pleasepleaseplease?” 

Taking a deep breath, she glanced over at Theo and Malfoy, who were apparently just finishing up with their breakfast. Gone was the tender grape-sharing, to be replaced by a muttered conversation. Her brain rather unhelpfully supplied that she might get to see Malfoy in his uniform again if she showed up. 

“Fine,” she grunted through gritted teeth. “I’ll come for a bit. But literally just twenty minutes or so, ok?” 

“Yes!” Ginny yelled, fist pumping and then hugging her again. “Thank you! I’ll have to tell Ron.” 

“Why?” 

“He nearly bet me five galleons that you wouldn’t go to a quidditch practice on your birthday.” 

“Nearly?” she asked archly. “Well, I’d hate to be predictable…” 

“I wouldn’t let him lay a bet on what you did on your birthday,” she said and Hermione blessed her silently with her eyes. Someone yelled Ginny’s name from the Gryffindor table and she nodded. “I’m gonna go grab something to eat. We’re heading out early to watch the Slytherins first and see what the competition is, but we start at one thirty, ok?” 

Hermione showed up at the quidditch pitch at quarter past one and found that a few Slytherins were still there, though clearly most of their tryouts had finished. Those who remained were flying for fun now. A few of them were still running drills under the watchful eye of the Slytherin captain, and somewhere on the absolute opposite side of the stands she could see a few Slytherin supporters, but mostly, the place was oddly deserted and quiet. 

The weather had also turned absolutely bloody miserable, with a fine sheet of mizzle wafting down around them, drenching everything and reducing visibility to almost nothing. She huddled deeper into her cloak and cursed, hair expanding steadily with the damp conditions. She really, really hated quidditch. 

“How in Godric’s name did I let myself get talked into this?” she growled to herself after just ten minutes of sitting in the freezing stands, wishing she at least had a book to distract her from her chattering teeth. “Ginny, I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m freezing my arse off. I’m going back.” 

“What? You haven’t even seen us fly!” Ginny laughed, though clearly not upset in the slightest. “I’m surprised you even showed up without Ron and Harry to cheer at. Have fun in the library. Until your party that is…” Ginny added ominously. “Don’t forget. I’ve got a surprise for you. Don’t worry; you’ll love it,” she added when Hermione balked visibly. “Fucking shit,” Ginny hissed, her gaze sliding past Hermione to the pitch behind. “Malfoy is really bloody good. I hate him, but look at that… It’s… It’s poetry, Hermione. Bloody poetry.” 

She turned and watched as a blur that was presumably Malfoy did an eye-wateringly fast swan-dive, rocketing straight out of the clouds right down to barely half an inch from the turf below, before barrel rolling upwards with the grace of a swallow to avoid a bludger. He pulled out of the roll and peeled right, drifting in a lazy arc and coming to a halt in front of the stands on the far side. He seemed to be holding a conversation with someone for a moment or two before he peeled away into a lazy backwards dive and then looped up into the air to begin soaring around the far end. The fluidity of his movements was mesmeric, and even Hermione had to admit that he was an absolute pleasure to watch. 

And then the wind blew raindrops down her neck and she shivered. 

“Nope,” she said. “I don’t care how beautiful he looks on a broomstick, I’m going in. See you later, Ginny. Good luck getting a better team than Slytherin!” and she disappeared before she lost her fingers and toes to frostbite on her nineteenth birthday. 

It took her well over an hour to warm up by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, but just when she’d contemplated going to the prefects’ bathroom to take a long soak to drive the residual chill from her bones, she found that she was actually nearly thawed out. It was only the lingering stiffness in her muscles after being locked in a tight ball in the armchair that remained. Deciding that a spot of exercise would probably finish the job, she grabbed her notebook and quill, and made her way towards the library. 

Predictably, it was almost completely deserted at nearly three in the afternoon on a Saturday, and she wove her way through to her favourite corner in the Charms section, settling her books down and thinking about what to start first. She had one Transfiguration essay that was admittedly optional, and one Ancient Studies translation to crack on with for Monday. Deciding to tackle that first, given that it would probably take her half an hour at most, she moved with familiar ease through the shelves until she drew closer to the restricted section. The book of runic verb tables was not held there, but the Ancient Studies section was visited so infrequently that it was tucked away near the restricted section all the same. 

As she approached, on the point of rounding the final corner of a bookshelf and entering the small, square alcove created by two bookshelves set perpendicular to the stone wall, she heard a gasp and a deep, guttural grunt, and froze. 

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d stumbled on someone doing something illicit in the library, but there was something about the timbre of that voice that made her pause and her heart race. Usually, people had the grace to conceal themselves or put up a befuddlement charm to distract other library users until they were done, but she was not so lucky this time. 

“Oh fuck,” she heard a breathy, male voice snarl and her eyes widened. 

It was Theodore Nott. She was sure of it. 

As she slid behind the bookcase that separated her from that small, secluded alcove, she peered through the books on the shelf and inhaled sharply in surprise, immediately holding her breath in case she’d given herself away. She needn’t have worried - the two engaged in something a tad racier than a quickly-stolen kiss or two were in no danger of hearing her one tiny gasp of surprise. 

Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott were pressed up against the far side of the bookshelves, mercifully on the other side of the square alcove from her hiding spot, and Theo had his jeans round his ankles, black boxer-briefs yanked down as well, while Draco had his own dark trousers undone and merely hanging around his narrow hips. Malfoy was wearing a long-sleeved, smart-looking white shirt which was now rumpled and untucked, and he had his left hand between the two of them, hidden from sight for the moment by his own body. 

She might have thought it jarring to see them in more casual clothes, were it not for the incredibly distracting activity in which they were currently and rather shockingly engaged. 

Theo looked… _debauched_. 

His curly hair was mussed up and thoroughly ruffled, his cheeks were flushed to the point that his freckles had vanished completely, and his wine-dark Henley had a distinctly fist-shaped crumple at the shoulder. His thin lips were also puffy and red, kiss-swollen and still wet. Meanwhile, he barely seemed to be keeping himself upright, with one hand gripping the stone wall nearby, his other clutched on the bookshelf behind him, and his dark blue eyes kept fluttering closed. 

Hermione stared, utterly transfixed. 

Draco had an enormous hickey on the side of his neck, angrily standing out in stark relief against the white of his skin. 

She couldn’t have looked away from them if a dragon had entered the library and begun to breathe fire amongst the books. They looked so _beautiful_ together, chests heaving, muscles straining and clenching in their exposed biceps and necks, the tendons pulled taut and straining as they ground against each other, breathless and gasping. 

“Fuck, Dr-Draco, fuck...” Theo snarled as Malfoy worked them closer and closer. The slick sounds of their efforts began to fill the small corner of the library and it was all she could focus on. They’d obviously been in such a rush that they’d neglected to throw up a concealment charm, or they thought that no one would be there on a weekend. Or… Or they liked the risk. 

“ _Fuck_!” Theo’s knees buckled as he yelped, and Draco’s right hand flew to cover Theo’s mouth. 

As his long fingers wrapped around Theo’s face, little finger just below Theo’s nose, she caught the silver flash of his signet ring. The sight of it pressed against Theo’s skin, the bone-pale colour of Draco’s body contrasting with the warmer tones of the taller boy, made her suddenly wet and hot all over. They turned a little bit as Draco applied a little pressure to Theo’s jaw with that hand and tipped Theo’s head to one side so that he could mouth and kiss at his exposed neck for a moment, and she saw that he had both of their cocks in one hand. His pace was quick and brutal, perhaps trying to finish them both off as rapidly as possible and send them tumbling over the edge of orgasm before they were discovered. 

The sight of Draco Malfoy’s hand around both his and Theo’s cocks together nearly undid her and she had to bite her lips together to keep from making a noise. Not once had she ever fantasised about anything like this. Even though she’d entertained the brief idea that the two boys could be together, it had never encompassed a sight like this, with Theo unravelling in a series of muffled groans and stifled gasps while Malfoy jerked him off with relentless focus. 

She knew she shouldn’t be watching, but before she could turn away and flee, Theo’s muffled words dissolved into a long, deep, guttural groan, his blue eyes rolling shut, as Malfoy paused and swiped a thumb over the weeping tip of his cock and Theo’s knees caved again. 

“Quiet,” Malfoy snarled, tightening his grip and causing Theo to throw his head back with another broken moan. He seemed incapable of keeping quiet, and he thunked the back of his head on the bookshelf but barely seemed to notice. Malfoy’s hand had been dislodged from his mouth by the movement, fingertips dragging obscenely at Theo’s lips for a second, and now his long fingers lay splayed and tense over his exposed throat, middle and ring fingers on either side of his sharp Adam’s apple. “This is a library, Theo,” he purred. “Quiet.” 

“ _Fuck_ … No one… c-comes to this… to this section anyway,” he panted, thrusting his hips weakly into Malfoy’s hand. “ _Oh fuck, there, like that. I’m so close. I’m so fucking cl-close, Draco._ Well… no one except…” he paused before managing to open his eyes and grinning wickedly. “Granger…” 

“Fuck! Don’t mention Granger now!” Malfoy practically yowled, fingers tightening in an involuntary spasm around Theo’s neck, and Hermione tried not to be hurt. Presumably though if they were there, doing this with each other, she wouldn’t have been of any interest to them anyway. 

Or… not…? 

Malfoy came almost immediately with a choked-off growl, as if the full force of his sudden orgasm took him by surprise, and he came _hard_. His head bowed forwards to rest against Theo’s collarbone as his back heaved and his hips jerked. He spilled into his hand and all over Theo’s hard, slick cock as well. 

Theo crashed into his release only a second or two later, one hand clinging to Malfoy’s shoulder, the other on the wall beside him, and then they both slouched against the bookshelves looking dazed and weak for a moment or two before Malfoy straightened and scourgified them both clean with a wandless wave of his hand. Talented and beautiful. Not many people would have had the presence of mind to do that kind of magic in the aftershocks of an orgasm like that. 

Hermione was breathless, still staring at them with eyes wide and heart pounding. She’d soaked through and ruined her underwear, she was sure of it. 

“Fuck, Draco,” Theo hissed, tucking himself back into his trousers and leaning shakily against the bookshelf. “I know it’s my fault, but we’ve got to stop doing this… It’s… It’s not fair…” 

Draco didn’t speak, and other than the vibrant, blotchy flush that crept up his white neck and onto his cheeks, there was no outward sign that he’d just come his brains out in the library, with Hermione Granger’s name fresh on his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeep! I hope you liked this one! It was nearly 5k words long, which is usually too long for me, but it felt right, so I left it. Looking forward to hearing what you thought, and thank you SO much for your comments so far. My venomous tentacular is thriving because of them, and my creative patronus is strong. 
> 
> Edit: you can find a Theo and Draco POV to the card giving over on my Tumblr [here](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com/post/631169449226076160/happy-late-birthday-d-in-my-rereading-of-dark)
> 
> Also, don't forget that my free drabble/short stories requests are open on my Tumblr ([coffeestainsandcashmere](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com)) so feel free to drop one by! I've got one to do for Draco and Theo, and another for the three of them having a snowball fight. I'll probably only post them to Tumblr though, so if you want to see them, swing on by! Thanks.


	7. Birthday surprise(s) - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Hermione's first birthday surprise, she heads back to Gryffindor Tower, only to find a second birthday surprise waiting for her there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, thank you for your feedback on the last one. I'm sorry it's been a while - things in life got crazy hectic for a bit! I'm just about to go through my comments inbox and reply to them all because you're all such gorgeously lovely people to take the time to comment! Thank you. Also, 'my' Draco here is left handed (I don't know if he is in the books/films), so that's one reason his handwriting wasn't the neatest. He can write properly if he has to, but he was probably a bit nervous when he wrote Hermione's card and defaulted to 'six year old boy's handwriting...!! 
> 
> Also, I wanted this chapter to centre on friendship, so I hope you like it. Things move forward in the next one, I promise.

Hermione fled the library in a daze before they could discover her. 

It wasn’t until she’d got back to Gryffindor Tower that she remembered leaving her notebook on the table near the Charms section. Darn it. Well, she’d have to go back for it another day - there was no way she was in any state of mind to face either of them now after that display. Good Godric, they’d looked so good together. How the heck was she supposed to sit next to either of them in class on Monday? 

She almost laughed at the thought of how red she was going to get and she paused in a passageway that led out onto the Fat Lady’s portrait, leaning her back against the cold stone for a moment, thighs pressing together, core burning. Oh hell, Theo would know something was up immediately, and he’d badger her until he found out what it was. And all the while, the only thing she was going to see was Theo with his head thrown back, Malfoy’s hand splayed across his throat, and then — oh Merlin and Morgana — the way Malfoy had come had been something else. It made her insides clench just reliving it. 

A nasty sting of guilt shot through her though, reproaching her for watching them like that, for not walking away. She felt as though she’d violated their privacy, but a moment later she scoffed that if they’d been so against being observed, they should have been doing it in the privacy of their Slytherin dungeon rooms, not the Ancient Runes section of the Hogwarts Library where anybody could have stumbled across them. 

So preoccupied was she about the events of that afternoon that she had almost no recollection of most of her journey through the castle back from the library, and as she stepped through into the common room, as the portrait of the Fat Lady closed with a click behind her, she nearly leapt out of her skin when a cheer went up from the room beyond and she ground to a sudden halt. 

“…What the…?” she croaked, blinking like a stunned owl, mind spinning.

The cosy Gryffindor common room was packed with people, but in the front of the crowd, she saw the ‘old guard’, all grinning: Neville and Hannah Abbott, and beside them was Luna. Padma Patil, also from Ravenclaw, as well as her sister Parvatti, who had not returned to school for this year, were standing side by side, beaming at her, but when her eyes fell on the two figures at the very front, she burst into tears. 

Harry and Ron stood there in casual muggle clothing, somehow looking like they’d almost never left Hogwarts, and she flung herself at them, sobbing. 

Harry caught her first, and Ron steadied her, laughing. “Hey, ‘Mione,” he mumbled from somewhere behind the mass of her curly hair. “Happy birthday.”

“Oh my god!” she cried, shaking, her emotions all over the place. “Oh my god! Was this Ginny’s idea?”

“Yeah,” Harry chuckled, his hand running up and down her back. “Happy Birthday. Surprised?”

“Yes!” she shrieked from somewhere near Harry’s collarbone before pulling back. It was a good thing she didn’t tend to wear makeup, because tears were running down her cheeks and sticking her eyelashes together. “Oh my god…”

Harry pulled her in for one last hug before releasing her, and then guided her over to a squashy sofa nearby. People began to break up and mill about, the younger years heading upstairs now that the show was over, but the others lingered. 

“Hermione?” Neville’s voice said from behind the sofa. “Ready everyone?”

When they began to sing a hideously out of tune ‘happy birthday’ while one of Molly Weasley’s homely-looking cakes was floated down onto the table in front of her, ablaze with nineteen candles, Hermione started to cry all over again. 

The next few hours passed in a blur of cake and catching up. She demanded that Harry tell her everything about being a trainee Auror, secrecy act be damned, but to his credit, he stuck to his guns and only told her what he could while they were all gathered there. And maybe just a tiny bit more. Parvatti, Luna, Neville, Hannah, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Harry all sat squashed into various armchairs and sofas, with cake on their laps (though Harry frequently also had Ginny in his lap), and a seemingly never-ending supply of butterbeer and tea on the table between them. Apparently it had been a gift from Professor McGonagall herself, though apparently Ron wasn’t supposed to have said that much.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised him and he smiled.

Ron was quieter than she remembered him being, despite the festivities, but he still spoke a little about his research with George at the shop. The death of George’s twin had clearly affected him very deeply, but he was trying his best to get on with the business of living. Things weren’t the same, and Ron’s older brother spent a lot of time locked in the lab, concocting new ideas with mixed success, but it was enough for now.

“You don’t see yourself there forever then?” she asked carefully. The second slice of birthday cake was now dwindling to nothing and she felt full and a little bit fizzy with all the sugar and butterbeer, but it was good all the same. 

He shrugged and looked at Harry with an odd look in his eyes. “I’m actually thinking I might join the Auror programme… They’re opening another batch of places in December…”

Her eyebrows rose a little, but honestly, she wasn’t all that surprised. She smiled. “I think you’ll do well, Ron,” she said and he seemed to relax somewhat, as if he’d been waiting nervously for her approval. 

“Harry says so too,” Ron said and Harry nodded once. He still looked serious, older than his eighteen years, and the tension that had crept into his features over the last few years still lingered despite what they’d achieved. 

“What about you? Gin says you’ve hardly stopped for food this term,” Ron asked before she could ask anything to Harry.

She shrugged and bought a few seconds by taking another mouthful of the cake. Neville butted in then and said, “It’s true! She’s taking a predictably mad number of classes…”

“No time turner this time?” Harry asked with a glint in his green eyes. 

“No,” she said decidedly. “Though if you know of anyone who has one…” she added playfully and both of them blurted, ‘no!’ at the same time before laughing. 

At five o’clock, Harry grimaced and ran his palms along his thighs, Ginny having left his lap a little while ago to let them all reminisce a bit more about things that had happened to their year. “We’ve got to go soon,” he said. “McGonagall said we could only stay a few hours, and she has to close the floo in her office.”

The aching disappointment that accompanied that statement threatened to bring all the butterbeer and cake back up, but she swallowed and breathed deeply before nodding. “I’ll walk with you,” she said. 

Harry looked rather pointedly at Ron for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll just say bye to Ginny,” he said. “Meet you outside the portrait in five?”

Hermione turned to Ron and noted an oddly grave expression in his features too. “What’s going on?” she asked, knowing she was ten times as likely to get an answer out of Ron than she was Harry. 

“Nothing. Ask Harry,” he amended. “I… I’m not really supposed to know about it.” That answer did nothing to help her nausea and she immediately regretted having allowed herself to get so tipsy. His tone suggested it was a serious topic, and she loathed not being level-headed. 

Ron brought his hand to her cheek and smiled sadly, stroking his thumb over her flushed skin. There was nothing predatory or invasive to the gesture and she allowed it, though she couldn’t help noticing how sticky his fingers were. Repressing a little shudder at the thought of second hand buttercream icing on her face, she watched his expression do something complicated. “You look happy,” he said. “Fucking exhausted too, but happy.”

“I am,” she said honestly. “I’m not saying everyone’s moved on, or that the past isn’t still rearing its ugly head from time to time, but… I feel good. Mostly.”

“Still having nightmares?” he asked in an undertone and she nodded. “Yeah, me too. It’s getting better though.”

Before  things could turn truly morose, Ginny reappeared and Hermione looked up to meet Harry’s steady, green gaze. Something wordless passed between them - an ability born from the height of crisis - and he twitched one side of his lips. ‘I know what you’re asking’ his expression said. ‘And I’ll tell you in a minute.’

She nodded and stood while Ron hugged Ginny goodbye. She was a little vague around the edges from the buzz of alcohol, but it did feel good, mostly… 

Parvatti said goodbye to her and she thanked her for coming, along with her sister and Luna too. Once the party had broken up, Harry, Ron, and Hermione left through the portrait and stepped out into the coolness of the stone corridor beyond. 

“Alright, what’s wrong?” she said quietly once the portrait had closed and they had moved a fair way down the corridor in silence.

Harry glanced at Ron, and then said quietly, “There’s more lingering resistance than I think Kingsley anticipated.”

“Oh?” she asked faintly, her stomach lurching. “But…” Fear flooded through her veins like the waters of a breached dam, and she reached for his hand, clutching the rough, callused skin of his fingers and squeezing. “Harry…” she croaked, suddenly failing to express everything. She wouldn’t survive another war - not like that. She couldn’t go through it all again. Certainly not so soon.

Ron’s hand landed gently on her shoulder and he rubbed a few calming circles with his thumb over the wool of her Gryffindor-red jumper. “It’s not that bad, Mione,” he mumbled. 

“Just a few pockets of resistance,” Harry said in a hushed voice. “The French Ministry has drafted a few of us in to help. There’s talk of activity at the Lestrange vault in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.”

Harry’s English accent butchered the French, but Hermione shuddered all the same at the mention of the Parisian cemetery where the Lestrange family vaults were said to have remained intact and undamaged by the course of time and history, despite the best efforts of many over the years. 

“I can’t tell you anything more than that really, and… I know that Hogwarts is still the safest place on earth, but… with your history with the Lestrange family…” he said, and Ron’s grip on her shoulder tightened for a moment. Harry didn’t need to finish the warning. Three sets of eyes dropped to her left arm. 

She drew a deep breath and nodded. 

From behind her, Ron added, “Bill and Fleur are helping us too. That’s kind of how I know any of this.”

Swallowing again, she leaned back on the sofa. “Tell me something?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“If I can, I’ll tell you anything,” Harry said immediately, and she smiled at him, though the gesture was a little frail.

She wanted to hug him, but instead asked, “How dangerous is it?”

He shrugged. “At the moment, we honestly don’t know. We’re not looking at a resurgence or anything, but… It’s only been a few months since the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione. There are dark pockets throughout Europe, still clinging to… old ways.” 

“I don’t know why I just thought that would be it,” she said a moment later, tipping her head back and letting it rest there against the freezing stonework of the castle where they’d paused to have this dark conversation. “I mean, it’s not as if auror training is… just for show. It’s real. You’re still fighting…” 

“Hermione -” Harry began but she shook her head. 

“You are. You haven’t lived yet - you’re still fighting. You’ve been fighting since you were twelve years old, Harry. You should… You should get the chance to live.” She shot him a look and hissed, “The Boy who Lived, huh? How much living have you really done?”

Harry’s smile was gentle, patient, and understanding. It reminded her viscerally of the moment when she had collapsed against him after seeing Ron with Lavender. “Plenty enough. I want to do this, Hermione. And at the moment, it’s just training, and a bit of reconnaissance work. There’s no new Dark Lord, no pureblood supremacy plots. Just pockets of resistance and people too bigoted to change.”

“Speaking of being too bigoted to change,” Ron said, turning and leading them towards the Headmistress’ office so that they could use the floo. “Gin said you’ve been getting rather friendly with a certain pair of Slytherins…”

She rolled her eyes. She was not going to go into this now with them; not when they were on the verge of leaving the castle. “Theo’s my patrol partner for our prefect duties, and if the other one of these mythically friendly Slytherins is Malfoy, I can assure you that we’ve barely spoken more than a few sentences to each other this whole term. Having said that, if I were to be getting to know them properly, that wouldn’t be for anyone else to judge, alight?”

To her immense surprise, Harry laughed. “The day you and Malfoy are actually friends is the day that kneazles swim.”

When she didn’t speak for a long moment, Ron scowled. “Mione?”

“He’s different,” she said in a soft whisper. “Now that Voldemort isn’t breathing down his and his family’s necks, he’s…” she blinked. “Yes, he’s still sharp and prickly, but he’s not cruel anymore. He’s quiet. Keeps to himself most of the time —”

“— wouldn’t you?” Ron snorted and she flashed him a look that made him balk. “Sorry.”

“I knew he wasn’t stupid, but he’s actually really smart. He could be a potions master one day if he wanted.”

“Yeah, but who’d hire him?” Ron asked, stepping to the side to allow her through an arched doorway first. “He’s a Death Eater, who —”

“ —Ex-Death Eater, Ronald,” she snarled dangerously. “A coerced and frightened child at that.”

“You do remember what an arrogant arsehole he is though, right?” Ron persisted. “I mean, the things he called you for starters…?”

She paused. “I do.” Her right fingers went instinctively to the scars on her left arm. “But I also remember the kind of upbringing he had, and the kinds of people who were raised up as role models for him to aspire to. Now… Now he just seems like a young man with a guilty conscience and a lot of trauma to deal with.”

Even Ron had no argument to that, and she glanced at Harry who just shrugged. “I sat next to one of the Greengrass family’s cousins at a Ministry function the other week. Maybe not all Slytherins are awful. She certainly wasn’t.”

“Exactly,” Hermione smiled. With a wry smile, she reached out and cupped each of their cheeks and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my favourite two boys. No matter what.”

Ron grinned wonkily at her at that, and Harry’s eyes softened. They walked down the corridor to McGonagall’s study but before they’d gone two paces, Hermione linked their hands, with Harry and Ron on either side, a strange sense of nostalgia creeping in as the gesture viscerally reminded her of standing on the rubble-strewn bridge to the castle, only a few months earlier. 

Hermione lay back on her bed that night, long after the tower had fallen silent and her friends had gone back to their lives, her mind still spinning. It wasn’t the butterbeer that made the room fuzzy.

The party had clearly gone the way Ginny had hoped, with a boisterous and fond reunion between old friends, but it had left Hermione feeling like a cork swept along in a rip tide.

Harry seemed suddenly so much older than she remembered him, the physical aspects of auror training hardening the seeker-sharp edges of his body into something she could only describe as the physique of an adult. And he carried the gravity of his new career in the set of his brows and jaw. And Ron? He had been more sullen and morose around the edges than she’d thought he might be. Working in the shop clearly wasn’t where his heart lay, and being reminded of his failed relationship with Hermione hadn’t brightened his mood at all. With Ginny half draped across Harry’s lap all evening, and with Hermione sandwiched between them and Ron, it had proved frankly a little awkward at times.

The news of activity at the Lestrange vaults had unnerved her, but she refused to think about that. She was a student again, and Kingsley and Harry and the aurors would take care of anything that needed taking care of. No one had their eyes shut now. There was nowhere to hide in the world now.

Thinking of student things drew her mind back full circle and she flushed as she remembered the reason why she’d been so taken off guard by the surprise party in the first place: the show she’d witnessed right beforehand. The one that had been so abruptly wiped from her mind in the shock of cheering and unexpected visits. Theo’s and Malfoy’s soft grunts drifted unbidden back into her memory, the sight of Malfoy with his left hand around both of them… 

Oh yes, and Draco Malfoy had had a blindingly intense orgasm immediately after his apparent boyfriend had brought up  _ her  _ name. And then they’d apparently felt guilty about some aspect of that.

Merlin and Morgana though, they’d looked spectacular together. All straining muscles and clenched jaws, tense, tightly wound, straining, gasping, coming...

She shuffled in her bed, checked the silencing charms again, and slid her hand down the waistband of her pyjamas. She was wet again just from that.

It wasn’t long before she too was gasping, her fingers clutching at the sheets beneath her as her hips arched off the bed and she sank her fingers as deep inside herself as she could. Which one of them she imagined doing this to her, burying their longer, thicker fingers inside her heat right up to the knuckle, she couldn’t have said, and it was a mix of deep blue eyes and silver-white hair that filled her imagination as she came in no time at all with a great, heaving, shuddering sigh. 


	8. Pause and Reflect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione's first day as a nineteen year old passes in introspection, and ends with a welcome step forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those of you who have left kudos and/or commented. It really means the world to authors, and it's the fuel that not only keeps my venomous tentacula alive, but actually makes me want to write more. 
> 
> The pace of this one is slower, so if you're looking for plot rather than insight into what Hermione is feeling, I suggest you get your magnifying glasses out and scour the final paragraphs of the chapter... I promise things will pick up again in pace next time, and I will just remind you of that 'slow burn' tag... And thank you again for your patience :)

Mercifully, she didn’t run into - or even so much as glimpse - Theo or Draco when she and Ginny entered the Great Hall for breakfast the next day. If she had, she was certain she would have combusted on the spot with embarrassment, and Theo would have known something was up immediately. He was just that annoyingly preceptive, and she would never have lived it down.

As it was, she and Ginny snuck in just before they stopped serving food, and when Ginny asked what she was going to do with herself on her first day as a nineteen year old, Hermione thought for a moment. 

Rather reluctantly, she murmured, “I think I might go for a walk.”

Thankfully, Ginny didn’t comment on how bloody  _ pedestrian  _ that was of her - literally and figuratively - and instead asked, “You want some company?” 

Hermione shook her head. “Thank you,” she smiled, “But I think I’ll go alone this time.”

Ginny sipped her ginger tea and said gently, “Always so much going on in that head of yours, huh?”

With a wordlessly expressive twitch of her eyebrows, Hermione agreed. Finding a way to shut it all up was the tricky part. Not wanting to burden the slightly younger witch with her rather melancholy musings, she excused herself after only a few bites of scrambled egg, and headed out of the castle and into the damp autumn morning. 

Her route took her out to the black lake where she stood alone on the shore for a while, skimming stones the way Ron had taught her during a rare, quiet moment of tentative fun during their hunt for the horcruxes. “Godric,” she hissed to herself, fingers curled around the edge of the slender stone. A small stack of them floated in mid air beside her.

She could hardly believe the sheer volume of everything that had happened in the past year, let alone the past few months, and yet again her eyes drifted down to the word that had been hacked into her forearm by Bellatrix Lestrange. Tentatively inching the sleeve of her mauve hoodie up to the elbow, she stared at it in the stark autumn light. 

_ Mudblood _ . 

Before she’d ever known she was a witch, she’d not fitted in. Quiet and strange, and bookish in the extreme, she’d made no friends at primary school. At eleven, she’d been on the brink of attending one of the most prestigious (muggle) girls’ boarding schools in England, with a full academic scholarship. And then Minerva McGonagall herself had shown up on their doorstep in Surrey to inform her and her parents that the strange things that had been occurring - at an increasing and alarming frequency - whenever she became emotional were nothing more than her magic manifesting. 

_ Magic _ . 

How that had changed everything. And yet… nothing had fundamentally changed even then. The two people who would grow to be her very closest friends in all the world had still found her bossy and self-important to begin with. 

She blinked rapidly as she sent another time-smoothed stone flying across the glassy lake and wondered if the giant squid minded what she was doing. If it objected, no doubt it’d make its displeasure known, but for now, the inky dark surface of the water bore only the ripples that marked the passage of her skimming stones, and the slight ruffle of the Scottish breezes that dusked and shimmered across its face from time to time. 

If twelve year old Hermione hadn’t been hiding in that particular bathroom to escape the searing loneliness of another meal in the Great Hall with nothing but a book for company, and, more to the point, if Harry and Ron hadn’t felt guilty enough to come looking for her, Merlin only knew where she would have ended up. Bludgeoned to death by a troll at the age of twelve, most likely. She shivered and inhaled deeply, drawing in the damp, clean air of the Scottish Highlands and trying to shake the melancholy that was settling around her like a cloud of Luna’s wrackspurts. 

She had friends now - friends who truly saw her worth and loved her for all the things that made her ‘Hermione’. It didn’t matter to them now that she had been ‘different’ all her life, either for her books and brains, or for her blood. And she was even tentatively making new ones from unexpected quarters too, it seemed. Still, the feeling of being left behind lingered, made all the more acute by her age and relative isolation. 

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” she snapped, simply lobbing a stone overarm into the water. It hardly went any distance; she was no chaser, that was for sure. “It’s not as if Harry and Ron abandoned you! You chose to come back to school at the age of nineteen! You could have had a position at the Ministry by now! You chose this, Hermione Jean Granger, and you’re going to have to live with it.”

A movement over on her left caught her eye and she stilled, turning curiously. 

Far off on the gently-sloping, heather-clad hillside that led eventually to the Forbidden Forest, past Hagrid’s hut hunkered down in its timeless hollow into the hillside, Hermione glimpsed two figures walking close together. They were too far away to make out much detail, but it was obvious from their clothes and demeanour that they were two boys, and as she squinted she saw that - yes - that blond hair was a very particular shade of platinum. She knew of none other in the school with short, white hair like that. If that was Draco Malfoy, then the slightly taller, lankier young man had to be Theodore Nott. The two were nigh on inseparable these days, and - yes - Theo walked just like that, gesturing with his hands and his whole body. 

An unexpected rush of affection coursed through her as she recognised the pair, and naturally she instantly recalled in vivid detail a rather more intimate moment between the two of them from only the previous day. Her cheeks heated and her fingers tightened on the stone in her palm. 

They made an odd pair she thought as she watched their progress around the lake, tiny as ants now at that distance. Draco, with his seething prejudices and sneering remarks, and Theo with his deliberately aloof detachment, from both the politics of school and country, had found a connection with each other and, from what she’d glimpsed in the library, had embraced that connection to the absolute fullest. 

Thinking about the two of them - with their strange intensity - made her feel on the outside of things again. Things with them obviously hadn’t been the same as they had over the years with her, Ron, and Harry, but she realised with a pang in her chest that she’d come to regard those two as something akin to friends in these first, short, three weeks of term. She kept no other close company among her contemporaries, save perhaps for Neville, though he had spent most of his free time over the last fortnight getting to know Hannah Abbott, probably on the same, carnal level as Draco and Theo were, and that only stung even more. Even awkward, gangling Neville had grown into himself, and here she was, dithering on the periphery as always, using her books and brains and hair as a shield… but what did she even want? Silver-blond hair and dark blue eyes for one… or rather, for two. 

At that last thought she ground her teeth together and hurled the final stone overarm into the lake with a muted yell of frustration. 

She was alone, and she hated it. She hated herself for feeling miserable about being alone, instead of rallying and telling herself she didn’t need others to complete her. She knew that she didn’t, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t yearn for some company too. More than that, she had come to view Theo, and Draco to a certain extent, not only as her classmates, but as her equals in so many ways, which frankly shocked her when she stopped to think about it. These were two pureblood wizards with connections - no matter how firmly lodged in the past - to extremely dark magic. Intellectually though, there was no one else who could keep up with her, and even Theo floundered at times, although the complexities of Arithmancy lay themselves down before him like a lover in a way that she found deeply attractive. Watching him argue the finer points of an Arithmantical equation with Septima Vector (and win more often than not) was probably one of the most arousing experiences of her life - library shenanigans notwithstanding. 

And Draco? Almost entirely gone was that sour-faced, pointy-chinned, pureblood supremacist. Sure, he still held lingering views about all sorts of things that got her own ‘imperfect’ blood up, but now she felt like he might be open to having a civil discussion about it most of the time. Draco Malfoy had apparently learned to listen somewhere along the way. The events of his sixth and seventh years had clearly shaken him to the foundations. But his eyes… Merlin, those eyes held the look of someone who had been made to feel real, genuine fear, and who had come out of the ordeal a changed man. 

A herd of thestrals took wing from the forest and spiralled out of the distant pines like a cloud of bats before banking north together, moving soundlessly as one. 

“Time to go back,” she muttered to herself, flinging the last stone from her hovering collection into the lake. Ron would have been proud of the six skips the flat stone did before its momentum sputtered and it sank, and she smiled a little at the thought of his grinning, freckled face as she turned back and headed for the castle with the vague idea of doing some work. Merlin knew, she had a lot of it to do. Almost enough to entertain the idea of a time-turner again… 

She spent the afternoon grading first year Muggle Studies quizzes, laughing fondly at some of the very ‘wizarding world’ answers she got for things like ‘what do Muggles use to travel long distances between countries, where a witch or wizard might use a portkey?’ but when the Gryffindor common room grew too rowdy for even her to concentrate, she upped sticks and headed for the prefects’ common room instead. 

But even there, she found no peace. Anthony Goldstein entered not long after she had settled into her Arithmancy homework, and although he was affable and warm enough, she couldn’t help but feel annoyed by his need to chat all the time. Couldn't he see she was working?  _ Oh _ . Oh, the boy was flirting with her, she realised as he dropped a stunning innuendo into the tail end of a sentence about a Charms assignment. 

“Anthony,” she said, closing her textbook with a snap. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to check something in the library. Have a good evening.” 

As she said her rather waspish goodbye, and left the blond sitting there looking like a centaur had stamped through his pumpkin pie, she realised that she still hadn’t collected her notebook from the Charms section of the library. Using that as a perfect and legitimate excuse, she extricated herself from his rather bumbling attention, and bolted for the library. 

Her cheeks were still flushed when she picked up the notebook, lying exactly where she’d left it. Bookish and focused as she was, it was still a comfort to know that she wasn’t entirely unattractive after all, and a tiny smile played across her lips as her fingertips trailed over the ring bindings of the distinctly ‘muggle’ notebook and biro pen.

Before she could get too lost in her own head again, however, a movement up ahead coming from the Restricted Section made her jump. She tucked her notebook up under her arm, and she was surprised to see Draco Malfoy exiting with a scowl on his face. His pale brows were drawn together, pinched and sour looking, and his grey eyes stormed with private dissatisfaction. 

He didn’t spot her right away, but when she noticed the subject of the book in his pale hands, she couldn’t help inhaling in surprise. The title indicated that the contents were concerned with blood curses in pureblood lines. 

Malfoy stilled at the tiny sound and his gaze darted instantly to her, his face shuttering, defensive and wary. When he spotted that it was her though, he relaxed minutely, until he saw where her brown eyes had fallen. “Don’t worry, Granger,” he said in a surprisingly soft voice. “I’m researching it for a friend who needs a nasty one breaking, though I think I’ll have more luck with the collection at Nott Manor than Hogwarts… It’s worth a try though.”

“Oh,” she said, the lingering flush in her cheeks returning with a vengeance. The last time she’d seen him here, he’d had Nott pressed up against a bookcase, the pair of them straining and panting, cheeks flushed with exertion, sounds — “Could I help?”

Something complicated flickered around Malfoys’ eyes and the corners of his mouth, but he shook his head. “You probably don’t know anything about this one, brilliant though that brain of yours is, Granger.”

“What, because I know nothing about purebloods?” she snapped defensively. 

He blanched noticeably. “No, Granger, because it’s Dark Magic. I didn’t mean to question the limits of your knowledge. They’re clearly boundless.”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” she snipped.

“I wasn’t,” he said quietly. “Goodnight, Granger.”

“Malfoy, wait,” she called at the dark shape of his retreating back. “I’m sorry. Truly. That was wrong of me. We don’t always have to be like this...”

He stopped and stared over his shoulder at her. In the dimness of the library after dark, he looked like a ghost; no longer gaunt, but still haunted around the eyes. “Like what, Granger?” he asked. His voice carried across the room like leaves in an autumn draft; dry and brittle and tired.

“We can just get along without deliberately misunderstanding each other all the time... I’m sure of it.”

“A Gryffindor and a Slytherin getting along?” he asked archly. “Grindylows might fly…”

Ignoring his caustic sarcasm, she smiled a little and said carefully, “Theo and I seem to get along just fine... I don’t see why you and I couldn’t as well. Look... the past is... well, it’s just that, Malfoy. The past. We can’t change it, but we can leave it there and move on.” 

She had moved closer to him while she’d been talking, her notebook and muggle pen in hand, and had begun to pace along the floorboards towards him.

All the while, he watched her approach like a rearing, wary cobra; unblinking, upright, and tense. 

Praying he wouldn't lash out at her impending offering, she paused. “What do you think?” she asked as she came to a halt in front of him and held out her hand to him. “You think we can do that, Draco?”

The flutter to his eyelids was just barely detectable, but as she spoke his name, he exhaled roughly - not expansively, but still, the outward rush of air was harsh and rough. Then he did the impossible — no, the improbable — and smiled.

It was a shy, almost sad gesture, but it was true and genuine, and he sighed and nodded. 

Draco slid his hand around hers, his long fingers and broad palm engulfing her smaller hand almost completely. His palms and fingers bore the polished calluses of a quidditch player, but he held her with the delicacy of a potions master, and the contrast was enough to take her breath away. Surely it was that and not the glinting silver of his eyes, the straightness or his nose, the fullness of his lips, the translucent perfection of his skin… 

Finally, he said in a rich, softly-articulated purr, “I think we can manage that, Granger.” As he shook her hand, he glanced down and then let his eyes flit back to her face. “Can I walk you back to Gryffindor Tower?” he ventured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, if you enjoyed it, please consider hitting the kudos button to let me know, and I promise the plot shifts its butt next chapter!


	9. Two Steps Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past begins to fall away between Hermione and Malfoy, but she still hasn't told him about the 'birthday surprise' he and Theo gave her in the library. On patrol that night, however, Theo notices something's up, and questions her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note to say thank you very much for your comments and bookmarks on this story. I'm really touched that you're enjoying my silly idea that got way out of hand. It's currently written up to Chapter Twelve, and goodness do things start moving along, plot-wise, from here on... Reminder (for now) of that good old 'slow burn' tag though.... 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one!! As always, looking forward to hearing your reactions.

Hermione looked carefully at Malfoy as he spoke his question, and then she smiled. As she did, she caught a flicker of something in his silver eyes, though the low light made him even harder than usual to read. 

“Sure,” she said, and released his hand. “I’d like that.” 

She didn’t miss the way he flexed his fingers slightly, but she didn’t get the impression he had found the ordeal unpleasant. She nearly snickered: Draco Malfoy, pureblood scion of Houses Black and Malfoy, shaking hands with a muggleborn… 

A slightly uncomfortable silence descended on them as they stalked from the library together. At the entrance, one sixth year who reminded Hermione remarkably of herself, weighed down by a stack of books, actually yipped from behind the pile of tomes in her arms like a surprised niffler when she saw the two of them together, side by side.

Malfoy shot Hermione a wicked, sidelong look, and smirked privately at her, which had the utterly unexpected effect of making her giggle. She tried to stifle it behind her hand, but it didn't work, and by the time they were out of the library and in the corridor beyond, she was nearly cackling. 

“I didn’t think it was  _ that  _ amusing, Granger,” he snorted. 

“It’s not just that,” she said. “I mean, her face was a picture, but… I’m also thinking what my second year self would think of us now, you know?”

The mirth in his features died and he looked straight ahead as if he were walking to the gallows. 

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, resisting the rather childish urge to dig him in the ribs. “You have to admit we’ve come a long way.”

The complicated look on his face, as he turned to look at her askance, made her stomach flip. 

“For starters, you’re about three feet taller!” she smiled. 

“I was not three foot tall in second year,” he grumbled, but it had no sting. 

“No, but you are pretty tall now,” she said, still fighting a rising tide of giggles. Perhaps it was nerves. She was alone with Draco Malfoy after all. “Not as tall as Theo, but still.”

He raised a single, icy blond eyebrow. 

His silent judgement made her babble like a senseless Jarvey. “I seem to remember you were shorter than Harry in first year, but then the summer between second and third year you shot up like a beanpole!” she grinned. “Godric, when I saw you on the first day back in third year, I hardly recognised you.”

“I’m not the only one who’s changed, Granger.”

She had nothing to say to that and finally let the flush in her cheeks speak eloquently enough for her. 

The rest of their walk passed in a more amicable silence. Malfoy strode along on his long, lean legs, and she tried not to sneak glances at him. The book tucked under his other arm intrigued her, but she didn’t mention it again, and when they reached the Fat Lady portrait, she turned to face him and smiled again. “Thank you, Draco.”

Silently, he bowed his head and briefly closed his eyes. He was the very picture of nobility and impeccable breeding and manners, with that gentlemanly grace and poise, and no trace of a sneer in sight. In that moment, he looked… well… he looked beautiful. “Goodnight, Granger.”

“See you in Potions tomorrow,” she croaked. 

“Maybe I’ll even let you partner with me,” he smirked playfully and she beamed and shook her head. Where had this playful Draco come from? Had he been waiting beneath the layers of fear and prejudice all this time?

“Bold…” she said. “I might have already made plans with Theo.”

His eyes practically danced with light at that. “He’d have told me.”

She turned and put her hand on the portrait’s frame. “With how close you are, I suppose he would,” she said illusively and whispered the password. At that, she suddenly recalled  _ everything  _ she’d witnessed between the pair of them, and flushed. The door swung open and she stepped inside without a backward glance. Her mood had significantly lifted though. 

Draco Malfoy had not only been civil to her, but he’d been downright charming. A past version of herself would have thought he was up to something, that there was some ploy or scheme in that unfathomably complex head of his. But now, as she trudged up the long, spiral staircase to the girls’ dormitories, she thought she saw only open vulnerability in his grey eyes. 

That night, no nightmares stalked her, and she drifted through the following day in an odd half-daze. 

She did partner with Draco in Potions, sliding into the empty seat beside him while he stared at Theo across the room, as though they were holding a private conversation with each other. And once they got going with the project, she saw yet again just how subtle Draco’s potions skills were; after taking his N.E. W.T’s he could probably get a Potions Masters with ease if he chose. He crushed pods with the flat of the blade first to get the most potency from them, sliced things wickedly small with the glinting blade without flinching, and combined ingredients before adding them to the cauldron in ways not marked in the book, but which felt instinctive as she watched him. Good  _ Godric _ , his hands too. There was something sinful about those hands.

Hermione helped with the preparations, but she was not too proud to admit to herself that the resulting potion was all Draco’s work. Where Theo was all about theory and data, wrangling concepts and equations in his mind, Draco was practical, sure as a surgeon, and yet also as creative as an artist. Who knew what he could go on to achieve now that he no longer had the spectre of Voldemort looming over every moment of his life?

“What, Granger?” he purred without looking up from his work, stooped over the cauldron and slowly stirring its contents widdershins after every third stroke clockwise.

“Nothing,” she said softly, the word almost lost over the combined bubbling from the class’ cauldrons and the quiet whisper of flames. 

At that, he did look at her, raising one eyebrow again. He didn’t stop the rhythm of his stirring though, something she thought unfairly attractive. Her thighs pressed together. 

“You’re very good at that,” she said softly, almost coyly. Immediately she told herself off for it. Draco wasn’t interested in women, it seemed, and after the library, she now knew that he was very much with Theo.  _ What are you playing at, Hermione? _ she scoffed at herself. _ You’re acting like a young teenager with a crush. Sort yourself out.  _

“Good at what, Granger?”

“Raising one eyebrow,” she said flatly, and was rewarded with a soft snort of amusement from Draco. 

On the other side of the room, partnered with Padma, Theo caught her eye a moment later and actually winked at her. Deciding to ignore both of them in case she knocked a cauldron over or something equally embarrassing, Hermione focused on their worksheets for the rest of the class, observing and noting down the changes the potion went through, and leaving most of the work to Malfoy.

Over a late supper, she and Neville talked in such boring detail about commercial gillyweed farming that everyone else ignored them and left as soon as possible, and she found herself suitably distracted from the constant churning in her mind, and afterwards she found she only had five minutes to herself before meeting Theo at the Grand Staircase for their prefect patrol. 

“Hermione? What’s up?” he asked halfway through their route as they made their way along the Tapestry Corridor. “Everything alright?”

They had only their wands for light that evening, with the lamps having been extinguished by Filch a little earlier than usual, and something about the dark made her a bit twitchy. That, or the intensity of Theo’s sapphire blue eyes on her all evening. She’d been fine with Malfoy earlier, but Theo was a different matter altogether it seemed. After all, he’d been the one she’d seen best from her angle in the library. And what a view that had been…

Adrenaline and embarrassment flared at his question - along with a very vivid image of Malfoy’s beautiful hand across Theo’s exposed throat - and she clenched her teeth tighter before snapping, “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” 

Why was it so different with Theo? Her brain supplied that  _ logically  _ it was probably because she had got to know him better, thus making her secret knowledge all the more awkward with him. Plus, he was more open and affable, so hiding something like that from him felt doubly wrong. Over and over, she’d scrolled through scenarios in her mind about how he’d react, from embarrassed to angry. They’d just closed the gap from ‘acquaintance’ into ‘tentative  _ friendship _ ’ and the idea of messing all that up now filled her with roiling dread. 

“ _ Right _ ,” he said slowly, one hand in his pocket as he ambled along beside her own quick, nervous trot, which didn’t help her mood. “But you haven’t looked at me once since we started patrol, and you’ve barely said a word to me in class all day either, and...” he ducked his gaze ostentatiously to look at her a little more closely, bringing his wand nearer to her face and half blinding her for a moment, “... yes, I do believe you’re sporting a very fetching blush under all that hair, Miss. Granger. Spill. What’s going on?”

“Why would you think it’s any business of yours?” she demanded, all too aware of the shrill harmonic creeping into her words. Oh heck, she could feel those emotions all boiling up inside her again as her embarrassment rose. 

Theo, however, only raised his eyebrows.  Apparently it was only Draco who could raise one independently of the other to that degree. Thank  _ goodness  _ for that, she nearly snorted to herself. It was far too disarming for  _ both  _ of them to be able to do it. 

“Ugh, fine. There is something on my mind,” she said. “But is there any chance you’ll just let it go?”

“Not in a million years, Granger,” he chuckled. “But… if it honestly makes you uncomfortable, tell me, and I’ll drop it. I may be Slytherin, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stop sniffing around if you tell me to. Your secrets are y-yours… I just… I was just trying to tell you in a rather r-roundabout way that you can… you can talk to me if you want to.” She didn’t miss the way he tripped uncharacteristically on his words, but ignored it. He was being sweet, and she was being a prude.

“No, it’s fine. I’m just embarrassed, that’s all.”

“Hermione Granger, embarrassed?” he grinned, clearly delighted. “Surely not?”

She just rolled her eyes.

“What’s got you blushing like a virgin then?”

Not wanting to admit to  _ everything  _ she had seen and found out, she settled for just half of it. “I didn’t know, I mean... Are you and Malfoy... together? Like... together  together ?”

Theo’s footsteps faltered briefly and he fixed her with an odd look. “Why d’you ask?”

“Answer my question, Nott, and I’ll think about answering yours.”

“You drive a hard bargain, my good Gryffindor witch. Yes, we’re together. And that’s together together, for what it’s worth.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice before —”  _ before I got an eyeful of the pair of you in the library… _ “Maybe I did notice but I just didn’t really believe it… But I mean, I saw how close you were, the way you touch each other all the time, and you act like you can read each other’s minds… and you’re just... so... so open with one another.”

“We’re not private about it,” he said. “Not de-deliberately anyway. Draco’s just private with his feelings.” 

“I figured that much out,” she said with a roll of her eyes. 

“So what did give us away?” he asked breathily, a very slight flush in his cheeks now. 

The blue light of their wands made his golden freckles all the more obvious as she shot him a sidelong look. As she turned, to her absolute delight she caught sight of something she could definitely use to cover up her own awkward nerves, and she seized on it. “Theo, you’ve got a hickey the size of  _ Hogwarts  _ on your neck,” she said flatly, hoping it would be enough not to have to bring up the scene in the library just yet. 

How she’d missed it before then was a miracle. Honestly, the thing was so big that it would probably appear as a separate entity on the Marauders’ Map: ‘ _ Theodore Nott _ ’ walking beside ‘ _ Theodore Nott’s Enormous  _ _ Lovebite _ ’. She giggled unexpectedly, the sound just bubbling out of her, making her nose scrunch and her eyes close briefly. 

Theo, to her surprise, flushed and looked away, his fingertips fluttering over the frankly raw looking bruise that covered a vast acreage of bare skin below his left ear. 

She raised her brows. “Draco likes to mouth at you then, I take it…? Do you not feed him enough over on the Slytherin table?”

“Don’t,” he laughed. “Oh, if you only knew the things his mouth could do, Granger…”

“I’m not sure I want to know, Nott,” she quipped.  _ But I could guess. _

“Jealous?” he shot playfully, but it struck remarkably close to the mark.

She faltered. 

Yes, she realised. Yes she was jealous. Instead of admitting it, both to him and to herself, she swallowed. Her playful defiance then mixed with something sour and bitter in her stomach and she scoffed, “I’m just glad one of us is getting some attention - heavens know I’m not!” It was easier trying to play off her aching loneliness as something to be laughed at. It had worked with Harry and Ron for years up until then after all. 

Theo, however, turned serious. 

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, marching off again. “I’m not some washed-up old matron just yet. And I didn’t say that so you’d feel sorry for me, Theo. I just meant that you should enjoy it.”

“I am,” he said earnestly, openly. “I do. That d-doesn’t mean you shouldn’t want what you want too...”

“I suppose,” she said, ignoring the twisting stab in her gut. But what she wanted was… unusual, surely. Wrong. She was drawn to both of them, and they were both patently unavailable. They were with each other, and completely off limits to her. The thought made her reckless - if Theo and Draco were clearly so in love with each other, that must mean they weren’t interested in any women, let alone her - and a new, wild bravery descended on her.  _ Now or never, Granger. _

Self-flagellating and a little bit masochistic, she settled on a course of action and picked up her pace. “Come on, I bet there’ll be at least two couples making out before we’re done with our rounds tonight. And Merlin knows I need something to get the image of you and Malfoy fucking in the library out of my head somehow.”

Theo nearly fell over his own feet as he crashed to a halt in the corridor behind her. “You what?”

She smirked but continued down the stone passageway until he eventually loped after her, cutting in directly front of her and blocking her path. His blue eyes glittered in the dim light and he towered over her, arms folded across his slim torso. “Hermione Granger do you have something you want to tell me?”

“Let’s just say I’m now a lot more intimately acquainted with my two favourite Slytherins than I ever expected to be.”

“You... How? When? Is this what’s left you so flustered?” he demanded, laughing softly to himself in disbelief. He didn’t seem in the least bit embarrassed any more, and she could have cursed him for it. She would have been a flaming pillar at the altar of embarrassment by now. Instead, she found she rather admired his confidence.

Chagrined, she grimaced and, relenting, said, “Saturday afternoon.”

Theo looked thoughtful, eyes still glinting. “Quite the birthday present, eh?” he snickered. 

“I was in the library hoping to do some Ancient Runes translation…” she said with a stern set to her eyebrows. “I’d gone to the Ancient Studies section - which is usually deserted on the weekend, by the way - and found Malfoy wringing what looked like a stunning orgasm out of the pair of you. Needless to say, I didn’t hang around afterwards to applaud you both on your  _ performance _ ...”

Theo ran his hand through his curls, bringing them into gorgeous disarray again, and whistled. “Slytherin’s balls, Hermione...”

“Nope - just yours,” she smirked, taking arch delight in his discomfort. Let him squirm - he could quite clearly take it, and that’s what you get for not putting up the appropriate charms.

He bit his lips together, cheeks pink, eyes still twinkling. Leaning in slightly, he asked, “Did you enjoy the show then?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I think it’s only fair you tell me...”

She fixed him with a look. “Really? You know what would have been fair, Theo? ‘Fair’ would have been for you to put up a damned privacy charm or two. It’s not my fault you made an exhibition of yourselves in a public space...”

“Alright, that is fair,” Theo hedged. “Oh man, Draco’s going to be so pissed when I tell him...”

Hermione sobered immediately at that. She’d been having her fun with Theo because she knew he could take the banter for what it was, but with her tentative new friendship with Malfoy suddenly on the line, it could all come crashing down at that news.

Theo didn’t miss a trick. “He won’t be pissed with you, don’t worry...”

She shook her head and sighed. This was a feeling she’d hoped to avoid; the seething, crushing sensation of impending disappointment and loss.

Taking her change in expression for the cue it was, Theo finally stepped aside and they continued on their patrol. “What?” he prompted gently after a minute or two of silence. “Something really took the wind out of your sails back then…”

“Malfoy’s just started to warm up to me,” she said. “I... I was honestly rather enjoying getting to know those new sides of him. You know, those less lethally sharp and venomous edges...? He’s no longer the person I thought he was before, well… before. Last night he was downright friendly to me when he walked me back from the library.”

Theo’s smile was fond, if brief, and he nodded, his deep voice sincere as he spoke. “Draco’s a tough nut to crack, Hermione, and he doesn’t open up easily - I’ll grant him that - but I don’t think him knowing that you’ve seen us in a... ‘compromising position’ is going to make him clam up again around you.”

“You don’t? God, if he’d been the one to see me doing what I witnessed the pair of you doing… I’d die of embarrassment every time he looked at me. You know what… I think I still might,” she laughed. 

He shook his head, still chuckling. “Ahh, but it’ll be worth it if we get to see him blush though. That’s always a treat.”

She smiled and nodded, recalling the blotchy flush that had stained his marble cheeks and neck back in the library. “It does prove he’s human after all, doesn’t it...?” she murmured ruefully.

“Indeed.” A heartbeat later Theo nudged her with his elbow and said, “I’ll bet you five galleons he goes bright red the moment he sets eyes on you tomorrow morning in Arithmancy...”

“Not a chance I’m taking a bet against a Slytherin, Nott,” she scoffed.

“Why, you think I’ll rig it in my favour?”

“You wouldn’t even have to rig it! You’d never bet in the first place if you knew you weren’t going to win it.”

Laughing freely, Theo shoved the hand not holding his wand back in his pocket and tipped his head back without breaking stride. “Too right,” he chuckled, the sound warm, throaty, and amused. The sound of it set her tingling all over. “And you’re t-too bloody smart for me, Granger. Too bloody smart by half.” 

A new warmth kindled in her chest at the throwaway comment, and she allowed herself a tentative, private smile. In the end, that hadn’t been nearly as bad as she’d imagined it  would be . Of course, she still had to face Malfoy tomorrow, but with Theo on her side, it couldn’t be  _ disastrous _ . The weight that had been dragging her shoulders down and pressing on her lungs suddenly lifted. Theo remained her friend. She was not alone.  _ She was not alone.  _ She could have cried at that  realisation _.  _

As they neared the end of the corridor and took a left down a narrow, stone staircase, the top of which began to move the moment they were both on it, Theo looked down at her. He was leaning effortlessly on the stone banister while the staircase rearranged itself, and he looked the very picture of indolent ease with his long, almost lanky, scholarly lines and frame, his messy curls, and a tiny smirk adorning his lips. Then to complete the look, he drawled in a very Malfoy-like tone, “So… we’re your favourite Slytherins then, are we?”

For answer, she smacked him on the bicep with the back of her hand. “Don’t push it, Theo,” she warned, and his booming, warm laughter filled the stone Viaduct Entrance Hall as they headed out onto the last leg of their patrol route. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? Did you like the way Theo found out? We hear from Malfoy in the next chapter...


	10. In defence of new friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione has a trying day and finds some closeness from slightly unexpected (who are we kidding though?) quarters. Also there's a party in the offing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am truly, truly staggered by the comments I'm getting on this. Thank you, from the bottom of my over-caffeinated heart. 
> 
> And, yet again, I'd like to remind you of that slow burn tag. I'm sorry if it's frustrating at all, but I really feel that with all the history between Draco and Hermione at least, it would take more than a month of being around each other to build any kind of relationship. Malfoy, although he's better, is still Malfoy - insecure, prideful, and defensive... 
> 
> Anyway, without further a-waffle, here's Chapter Ten. Chapter Eleven will be up as soon as I've edited it, and as I said over on my Tumblr, it's currently written up to Chapter Fourteen and a bit. And it really does start moving along nicely soon, I swear. 
> 
> Thanks again,  
> Cashmere. 
> 
> *flings these 4k or so words at you and ducks*

Herbology the next day went from bad to worse. 

The day itself had started off well enough, although when she got to Arithmancy, she discovered that Draco had quite deliberately planted himself in a different seat from normal. By shunting Theo one place up the bench, and taking the spot that Theo had recently come to occupy more often than not between her and Malfoy, Draco left her no choice but to take the empty seat immediately next to him on the end of the bench. She should have known that Malfoy would never submit to his embarrassment without some kind of challenge… 

As she slid onto the end of the row, muttering to herself about plotting and conniving Slytherins, Malfoy turned slowly, dramatically, to face her and raised one eyebrow. In the past, that was an expression that would have made her bristle, but now, she took it for the playfully ‘put out’ gesture it was. Over Malfoy’s shoulder, she could see and hear Theo snickering, his shoulders shaking conspicuously. _Oh Merlin, here we go. So much for hoping that Malfoy would be a quavering, embarrassed wreck today. I should have known that he’d try to turn it all around on me._

“Something you want to confess to, Granger?” Malfoy drawled slowly under his breath. 

Hermione was not going down beneath that unflinching silver gaze without at least a _little_ effort, but the way he said it made her think he could probably read her as easily as if he were using legilimency. She really hoped he wasn’t, because frequency with which the tone of his silk-smooth, aristocratic voice made her insides heat up was becoming quite frankly alarming. 

“Me? Confess? _Hardly_ ,” she scoffed without looking at him, tossing her hair over one shoulder and opening up her muggle notebook. She clicked the top of her muggle pen a few times just to annoy him with the abrasive noise. “I’m not the one openly and publicly committing transgressions in the library, Draco,” she added pointedly. “You’re the one who should be seeking absolution after what I saw you doing to Theo…” Honestly, it hadn’t been _that_ adventurous, but the sight of them like that had been incredible, and she was damned if she was going to let him get the upper hand now, especially since she was so god-damned tired too. 

When she risked a look at him again, his lips were curled into a beautiful smile, eyes dancing, but, yes, there were spots of colour beginning to form in the glacial apples of his cheeks. Had she won? 

The colour inched slowly down over his face to his neck, obviously against his will, until he finally had to look away as the tide of pink hit the collar of his shirt. Relief washed through her and she nearly went slack with it. Draco really wasn’t going to make this awkward, but Theo had been right. Draco had indeed blushed, and had been extremely pretty. She even gave a little audible giggle to herself and caught the way Draco shook his head slightly. To think that the glacial, walking-talking-sneering marble statue that had been Draco Malfoy for the last seven years was now apparently so much softer, more vulnerable beneath all that armour, made her smile almost fondly. War and prejudice had forged him steadily into something that fundamentally, he wasn’t. 

_Time_. Time and patience, she realised, would reveal his true character. 

Theo - still snickering - reached behind Draco’s shoulders and offered Hermione his palm for a high five. For a moment, she considered leaving him hanging, but with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head, she met him half way and Draco ignored her for the rest of the class. It wasn’t malicious though, and a new, effervescent tension thrummed between them that she’d never experienced before. 

When she parted from them to head out to the greenhouses for her last lesson before lunch, Malfoy caught her by her left forearm to stop her. “Granger?” 

She looked reflexively down at the point where he held her, pale fingers gripping her grey jumper, and he released her instantly, blanching. “Yes?” she said, trying not to make it uncomfortable. His hand had been right over the scrawled scars from his deranged aunt. 

“I really don’t mind, you know?” he said, eyes bright. 

“Mind? Mind what?” 

That single eyebrow rose again, and with it, her stomach twisted. She was definitely going to have to quash any reaction she got to that gesture before it became a problem. Or worse, some kind of kink. To cover up her slight anxiety, she quipped, “If I thought you were really going to _mind_ that I saw what you and Theo get up to, I might suggest that you find a more private place for your… activities, Draco. I have to say though, I didn’t take you for an exhibitionist.” 

“I’m not,” he said quickly, consonants clipped and tight. “Truly.” 

“Then why the library?” she asked. “Something to cross off your list of kinky, debauched things?” 

He sneered just a little and his shoulders rose, the movement defensive and wary. “Maybe.” And with that, he walked off. “See you tomorrow, Granger.” 

From there, things had deteriorated. 

Running a touch late after being stopped by the new Muggle Studies professor to discuss an upcoming practical he wanted her to help organise, she raced out of the castle with only a few minutes to spare before Herbology. In no time at all, sweat stippled uncomfortably along her hairline and at the nape of her neck, insulated by her dense mane of curls, and she cursed the fact that she didn’t do much physical activity. Ron and Harry had always played quidditch to keep lean and fit, but she had only the long treks to the library and Gryffindor Tower, and of course her near constant state of high stress, to stretch her cardiovascular system. 

Perhaps still a little preoccupied by thoughts of Draco’s uneven blush blossoming over that perfect, pale skin of his - and the memories that such a sight inevitably conjured - or perhaps simply not paying attention as she scuttled awkwardly over the grounds - whatever the reason - Hermione had slipped on the wet gravel on the way down to the greenhouses. She went down hard, bashing her tail-bone as she sat down heavily and unexpectedly, scuffing her palms, and dirtying her skirt and book-bag in the mud. Hauling herself to her feet with a scowl and pausing only a moment to catch her breath again, she fixed the mud on her clothes and bag with a charm, but the scraped palms were fractionally harder to fix. No matter that she’d performed simple healing spells on any number of people during the last few years, the truth remained that healing magic is notoriously hard to perform on one’s self, especially when the damage is not all that serious to begin with. So she slid in late to the greenhouse with a murmured apology to Professor Sprout, and spent the lesson with smarting hands and a distractingly sore bruise on her backside from her fall. 

To add insult to injury, the venomous tentacula nearly grabbed her from behind as she passed it to get some supplies from the back of the greenhouse, and it left prickling spines in her clothes until Hannah managed to vanish them all for her. Towards the end of the class, Hermione then let an entire jar of vermiculite slip from her hands onto the flagstone floor, sending pale granules scattering everywhere along with fragments of glass. After yet another charm to fix it, she sighed. It had been easily rectified, but of course that wasn’t the point. It just seemed to be one of those days. 

“You alight, Hermione?” Neville asked quietly as the two of them finally packed up while the rest of the class filed out. He leaned on the handle of the broom he was using to sweep up, and fixed her with an astute stare. 

Lingering behind with him because she didn’t fancy going up to lunch just yet, Hermione sighed and pushed her hair back out of her face, smearing a line of mud over her forehead with the motion. She groaned and grimaced when she felt it, and Neville chuckled understandingly. He frequently emerged from a day in the greenhouses with leaves in his hair or dirt on his cheek after all. 

“Here,” he said, setting the broom aside to draw his wand and cast a quick scourgify for her. While the war had left Hermione somewhat rattled and drifting, it seemed to have prompted Neville to grow into his magic, and into himself, with confidence. He still didn’t attempt the most complicated charms, but what he could do, he could now do well. His real talents, however, lay in Herbology, and in the growing and nurturing of living things. 

“Thanks, Nev,” she sighed while he stowed the broom away and moved to pick up a jar of doxy venom. “Yeah, I think I’m just a bit… tired.” As if to prove her point, she popped a jaw-cracker of a yawn a beat later. 

“You need an evening off, Hermione,” he said sincerely, dropping the contents of a pipette onto one of the tentacula leaves and waiting until the infernal plant had moved the vine into its mouth like a child licking ice cream off its finger, and then shuddered into a passive doze once more. “Have you even stopped at all since May?” 

She rolled her eyes. “You’re preaching to the choir, Nev,” she laughed bitterly as she thought about the workload piling up back at the castle. 

And no, she hadn’t stopped since May. 

Her summer had been spent in wizarding London, attending meetings at the Ministry or testifying at various people’s trials, Malfoy’s among them. Not for the first time, she ruminated on the fact that the real reason she’d taken on such an aggressively huge workload this year (again) was to distract her from the crushing fear of what came after… Without work as a focus, without something to occupy her and fill her time, what did that leave her? Who was she? For the most part, the anxiety was settling down as May got further from the present, though it was not without its peaks and troughs. Now her greatest threat was not Death Eaters, snatchers, and Voldemort, but chronic exhaustion and impending burnout. Again. 

“Well…” Neville said as they finally stepped out of the humid greenhouse and into the crisp autumn day beyond. The grounds were deserted, with most of the castle now ensconced at lunch and she took a deep, restorative lungful of Highland air. “…A few of us are going to Hagrid’s this Wednesday. It’s Fang’s birthday, but honestly, it’s just an excuse for a bunch of eighth years to let off steam. McGonagall has already approved it, and so long as we don’t drink too much butterbeer, she’s fine with it.” 

Hermione’s eyes widened and she stopped walking. “McGonagall approved a party?” she asked. “During the week?” She blinked. “…With alcohol?” 

“Yes she did,” he grinned, shoving his hands into his pockets with a rather roguish air. “You coming?” 

“Who else is coming?” she asked as she kicked her feet back into action again, her thoughts naturally running to two or three people that she could safely assume had not been asked yet. 

He began with Hannah Abbott and listed a few others, and notably did not include Theo and Draco. “Why, did you want to include someone else?” he asked when he’d finished. “I just assumed Ron and Harry would be busy during the week…” 

As they hit the steps back up to the castle, she shrugged in what she hoped was a casual gesture. “Might be nice to include some of the Slytherins.” 

“What?” he blurted. He didn’t seem particularly offended, just… surprised. 

“Daphne doesn’t have a lot of female friends outside of Slytherin,” she said carefully, “And Theo and Malfoy could use some socialising…” 

“They’re not dogs, Hermione,” Neville said with surprising vehemence. “They’re not puppies who just need a bit of socialising - I’d like to remind you that at least one of them was literally a Death Eater… Is that why you’ve been hanging around with them so much? You think you can reform them all by yourself?” 

“What? Of course not!” she blazed indignantly, gawping openly at him. “They’re genuinely nice people, that’s all. Malfoy made some awful mistakes, I’ll grant you, but there’s more to his story than just the stuck up prick I always thought he was, Nev. And that’s all the more reason to include them now… If we’re petty enough to exclude them from even the simplest things, what does that say about us?” 

Neville gave a side to side movement of his head and glanced down at his shoes as they walked under the arched entrance. “…That we’re no better than them, I suppose,” he admitted reluctantly. 

“That we’re no better than they _were_ ,” she stressed. She was starting to get awfully fed up with always being the only one to defend them to her contemporaries. Was she truly as crazy for wanting to get to know them, as Ron would probably have had her believe? “Let me ask them?” 

“You think they’ll even come?” 

“That’s not the point,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low as she strode into the hall for lunch at his side. 

As they entered, she shot a quick, guilty glance over at the Slytherin table - _as if they’d be listening in with a pair of ridiculous Extendable Ears or something_ , she snorted to herself. There, halfway down the table, she saw Daphne Greengrass leaning in close to Malfoy, heads tilted towards each other, their conversation obviously intensely private despite the location. Theo sat beside Draco but was clearly not a part of their discussion. He sighed heavily, idly trailing his spoon through a bowl of soup, cheek pillowed on a fist, blinking unseeingly into its depths like Professor Trelawney gazing into a teacup. The whole, odd interaction brought a frown to her face, and she nearly walked into Professor Flitwick who was hurrying down from the high table. 

Twittering out an apology to him, she scurried after Neville and sat with her back to the Slytherin table and found that she was frowning into her soup too after only a few minutes. She’d been so caught up in getting to know the pair of them that she’d almost forgotten the way the rest of the school - and probably the world - still saw most of the Slytherins, let alone Draco. Doubt tingled at the edges of her thoughts, but she beat it back for now with her fiercest scowl. She had never let the opinions of others change her own, and she was not about to start now. 

Ron’s incredulous voice from the weekend did still echo through her mind. _“You do remember what an arrogant arsehole he is though, right? I mean, the things he called you for starters…?”_ Malfoy was still arrogant at times, no doubt about it, and he had called her some truly awful things. But… he had changed… hadn’t he? His new sense of humour and gentle, almost shy behaviour couldn’t be some kind of act; not after the nuances she’d witnessed in him this term… could it? 

“What’s up, Hermione?” Ginny asked, calling her out of her stupor. 

Neville interjected, leaning across and hissing in a stage whisper, “She wants to invite the Slytherins to our eighth year bonfire at Hagrid’s.” Of course, as Head Girl, Ginny would have known about the gathering, even if she wasn’t invited. 

Ginny looked appalled. “Really?” she blurted. “I know you’ve been getting on with Theo alright, and I suppose he’s actually pretty ok - plus you two kind of have a lot in common with the brains and all that - but… the others? Malfoy?! Fair enough if you’re trying to get on with them in classes and stuff, but I can’t see why you’d bother to invite them to a party…” 

In her seven years at the school - six technically - Hermione had never known _anyone_ to invite _any_ Slytherins to _any_ party, so she really shouldn't have been surprised to meet their astonishment now. “If I don’t, who else will?” she said in barely a whisper, and Neville and Ginny both had the grace to look abashed. 

“Guess you’ve got a point. It’s up to you, of course, but still…” Ginny shrugged and returned to her soup, clanging the spoon against the rim of the bowl once or twice. 

It wasn’t the bitter turnip soup that left a sour taste in Hermione’s mouth for the rest of the day, but by the end of class, she was _determined_ to invite the Slytherins along. After all, the surest way to get Hermione to do something was to tell her it was impossible. Following a rather intense after-school tutoring session with some floundering Gryffindor second years, she found that she had just five minutes to cram her supper in before they stopped serving food. Fighting off some wicked indigestion, she made her way to the entrance to the Slytherin dungeons and loitered, waiting for someone to come in or out. 

It didn’t take long. Pacing up and down, she tried not to bite her nails, and instead wound and unwound a coil of hair around her fingers until it was a nearly perfect corkscrew. A nervous-looking Slytherin first or second year exited - looking arrestingly like a jumpier version of a young Blaise Zabini - and she practically pounced on the poor kid. 

“Could you do me a favour?” she asked him and he looked like he might pass out as he nodded mutely. She got that reaction a lot from the younger years, and chalked it up to her reputation: she was one third of the famous Golden Trio after all. 

“Thank you. Could you see if either Theodore Nott or Draco Malfoy is about? I need to talk to them. Or Daphne Greengrass, I suppose.” She couldn't remember ever having spoken a word to the Slytherin girl, but now felt like as good a time as any to start. 

The child nodded and scurried back through the still-open portal, and Hermione resumed her pacing. As a prefect, she could have legitimately followed him inside, but she didn’t fancy stepping into the snake pit alone and uninvited, so instead, she brooded outside, working herself up into a fair tizzy. Would it make the party awkward having them there? Probably. Was she about to ruin everything? Potentially. Was she making a bit mistake? Perhaps. 

“Hermione?” it was Theo’s voice, to her unexpected relief, and she spun on the spot, thick hair swishing. 

“Theo,” she said, anxiety rising up inside her until she nearly choked on it. 

“That’s me,” he said, also looking uncharacteristically awkward. It was only as he tilted his head to one side, a silent question on his handsome, freckled face, that she realised this was the first time she’d ever sought him out, outside of patrol or class. He wasn’t wearing his full robes, just his trousers and school shirt, untidily untucked, with a pair of reading glasses poking rather endearingly out of the top pocket. “What do you need?” 

With a deep inhale, she tried to begin. 

To her horror, instead of words flowing, she found tears prickling her eyes and she blinked furiously. 

_Oh_ _for goodness sake, Granger_ , she snarled at herself. _You’re a bloody war hero. Stop getting het-up over something so trivial_. But it wasn’t trivial; not really. If all of the various eighth years and the three remaining Slytherins could sit through a small party without tearing each other’s throats out, then they would have made more progress than she’d ever thought possible. Of course, it could all go arse-over-teakettle and devolve into a shouting match, at best… 

Perhaps this was a mistake after all. 

“Hermione?” he prompted when she remained silent, lip trembling perilously. “Please don’t hex my bollocks off for suggesting this,” he said, “But you look like you could use a hug…” 

Theo stepped tentatively towards her and she swallowed thickly. He looked so open, so concerned, that it tipped her right over the edge and she finally just burst into tears. 

“Hey, hey,” he crooned softly, and without a second thought, he enveloped her in a gentle hug. 

Good _Godric_ he was tall. And apparently he gave really, _really_ good hugs. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held like this. _Merlin_ , had it honestly been that long? All she’d had in months was a sparse smattering of brief embraces each from Ron and Harry, and a handshake from Draco Malfoy. Harry’s had been heartfelt on her birthday, but fleeting, and Ron’s… well that had still been awkward for obvious reasons. Now, with her face pressed against Theo’s warm chest, the tears soaking into his white school shirt, she clung to him. 

Theo’s right hand found the back of her head and he stroked the frothing surface of her dark curls. 

He didn’t speak, didn’t press her for answers; just held her until eventually a low voice from behind him murmured his name. He glanced slightly back over his shoulder without breaking the embrace, and murmured, “Hey Draco.” 

At that, Hermione sprang back, horrified, cuffing her tears away with the sleeve of her grey jumper. Half turning from them to try and compose herself, she missed whatever words were exchanged between them, but when she did turn back, she found Draco standing beside Theo with an oddly soft look on his face. 

“What happened, Granger?” he finally asked. Yet again, the open concern and lack of sneer in his voice took her by surprise. Would it ever not be a surprise to be met with kindness instead of contempt by him? And how could she have doubted him really? 

“Nothing. _Merlin_ ,” she hissed, “I’m so sorry. It’s just been a long day and I’m tired and apparently more than a bit emotional. I… I promise I didn’t come here to burst into tears all over your boyfriend, Draco, I’m sorry.” 

At that, Draco's pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink but other than that, he didn’t move. Theo, gently, then asked, “So what did you come here for? If you didn't show up just to dampen my shirt and torment Draco some more with the fact that you’ve seen us both —” 

“—Theo!” she barked desperately, cutting him off before he finished that, but his self-deprecating jibe did the trick, and she laughed. Shooting another look at Malfoy, she saw him blush harder, but to his credit, he met her gaze unflinchingly. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “And no, I really didn’t come here for that.” She sniffed and blinked a few times. “I actually came to ask you both and Daphne if you’d like to attend a small party that some of the other eighth years are having at Hagrid’s on Wednesday evening.” 

“Us both and Daphne?” he quoted with an odd inflection to the question. 

She frowned. “You’re the only eighth year Slytherins who came back, aren't you? Unless you’re keeping Blaise and Pansy and the others locked up in a cupboard somewhere?” 

Theo snorted indelicately through his nose and began to laugh, while even Malfoy’s lips twisted into a wry smile at that. Seeing the two Slytherins together - laughing, eyes alight - restored her equilibrium somehow. They were happy, and honestly, they deserved it. Whether they’d be as happy in the company of the others in their year was a worry for another day. 

Draco drawled, “I’m sure Blaise and Pansy would rather enjoy being locked in a cupboard for a while. But no, Granger. As always, you’re right. It’s just us.” 

“Good,” she said, deliberately ignoring his compliment for the time being. “Well, it starts at eight, if you want to come along. At Hagrid’s. On Wednesday.” And with that, she prepared to leave. She dithered on the first step, however, and turned back to face them. “Sorry about your shirt, Theo,” she said. 

Smiling, he shook his head, and her eye was caught by the way that Draco and he subtly interlaced their fingers as they stood side by side, Draco’s white skin contrasting with the darker tan of Theo’s. “Don’t think about it. It was an honour to have the Great Hermione Granger snot all over me in public.” 

“You’re awful,” she chuckled. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight Theo, Draco.” 

They both nodded silently at her, smiling softly, and she turned and hurried up the staircase, trying not to leave the impression that she was bolting. She absolutely wasn’t. Not at all.


	11. Beneath the Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for your enthusiasm for this slow-burn story. I feel like they're making some traction now, but I look forward as always to hearing what you have to say. I thought I'd post this one today as a 'thank you' for being so lovely and taking the time to comment and/or kudos my story. 
> 
> More plot traction ahoy in the next few chapters too...

With Hermione levitating the huge barrel of butterbeer carefully so that it didn’t froth too much, and Neville floating a massive crate of bonfire-appropriate snacks, the two friends made their way down to Hagrid’s early on Wednesday evening. 

The wheel of the year was slowly rolling around through autumn towards winter, and although this bonfire was more of a campfire, its bright flicker and crackle still brought a smile to her face when they picked their way carefully down the slope to the hut. Her magic tingled and fizzed with anticipation, and her mood picked up significantly the further from the castle she got. Hagrid was sitting outside his humble hut on a log, hooting out a quavering tune on a rough wooden pipe, with Fang pressed against his legs and drooling freely onto his trousers. 

When he spotted the two of them, however, Hagrid tucked the flute away into a cavernous coat pocket and stood. “Wonderful,” he said, rubbing his dustbin-lid palms together. “Just put it all down there on that table. Is that everything? I made a few rock cakes for yeh, just in case yeh need more to eat…” 

Neville and she exchanged a fleeting look and Hermione clenched her teeth together for a heartbeat at the thought of the offensive weapons she’d once sampled, masquerading as Hagrid’s infamous rock cakes. “Let’s see how we get on with this lot first?” she said diplomatically. “We can always bring them out if people are still hungry later.” 

“Right ye’ are,” he chuckled. “Ah, I’m glad we’re doing this, ‘Ermione,” he added as Fang wandered over, his tail wagging most of his body too. As Neville began to set out the food on the table, Hagrid leaned in closer and said, “Yeh alright, ‘Ermione? Yer lookin’ a bit peaky…” 

“I’m fine,” she said automatically. “Just… a lot going on, as ever.” 

His bushy brows drew together, but he left it there and glanced up over her shoulder. “Oh look, there’s Luna,” he boomed and Hermione wiggled her finger in her ear in a futile attempt to help her eardrum recover as he stumped off to welcome the latest arrival. 

Fang jabbed his thick, wet nose into her hand and she crouched to cuddle him. “Hey there birthday boy,” she said. “You must be getting on a bit now, hmm? No sign of it, I swear,” she said, scratching his silvery muzzle. The old dog huffed once and sat down heavily on his haunches at her feet. 

“I brought lemon cakes and ivy,” Luna chimed and Hermione’s own face buckled into a confused and concerned frown. 

“Ivy’s poisonous, Luna,” she said, scourgifying her hands before catching up with Hagrid to inspect the plate in Luna’s hands. 

“To humans, yes,” she said as if Hermione were a young child, “But if we’re visited by nargles, they’ll take it as a sign of peace and won’t bother us. They might be drawn by the fire and people’s laughter. I’ll place it around the edges of the logs in a big ring,” she said in her lively, singsong voice. “Would you like to help me, Hermione?” 

Opening and shutting her mouth briefly, Hermione eventually just nodded. “Sure. Of course.” 

Nargles. Why not? 

Padma and Anthony Goldstein arrived shortly after that, followed fifteen or so minutes later by Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff. When Neville saw Hannah, he flushed and began to fuss awkwardly with the marshmallows he was tipping out into a bowl, ready for toasting later when the ferocity of Hagrid’s campfire had died down a little bit. Hermione thought it was probably fortunate that the roof of Hagrid’s hut was tiled and not thatched, what with the way the sparks were swirling up into the crisp evening. 

“I can finish that off, Neville,” Hermione muttered at him and he shot her a grateful, if slightly green, look before disappearing round the fire to give Hannah an awkward hug. 

With Hannah busy making doe eyes in return at a blushing Neville, Hermione took over the last of the arrangements while people arrived and helped themselves to butterbeers and snacks. There was no sign of Daphne, Draco, or Theo though, and as the evening drew on, she began to feel leaden disappointment lining her stomach. Of course they weren’t going to show up. They knew as well as she did just how welcome they would be there, but it didn’t stop her from wishing. Plus, the firelight would look beautiful gilding Draco’s silver hair and bringing out the coppery highlights in Theo's curls… 

After her second butterbeer, just as Hagrid was regaling them all with the story of Norbert - now apparently Norberta - Hermione felt a prickling on the back of her neck, and glanced around reflexively to see three figures emerging from the darkness and descending the stone steps to the hut. Daphne, with her long legs, straight blonde hair, and slender waist, looked _fantastic_ in muggle clothing in a way that Hermione could really only dream of. This was probably the first time she thought she’d ever seen Daphne in muggle garb, and Theo too wore dark jeans, a light shirt and a maroon jumper, and an unbuttoned tweed blazer. She thought for a moment that Draco was still wearing his school trousers, but as they approached she saw that they were infinitely better tailored, even if they were still jet black. He wore a white shirt and a green, round neck jumper, with glinting silver cuff links too, looking ever the nobleman’s son. His hair was combed but not slicked back, and he looked soft, almost shy, as the three of them approached, with Draco bringing up the rear. 

Everyone fell silent at their arrival, and it wasn’t until Hermione jumped up and went over to them that talk resumed. They’d all been ‘warned’ that the Slytherins had been invited, but, as Anthony had scoffed, no one thought they’d ‘have the balls to show up’. Apparently they did. 

“You’re here,” she smiled somewhat breathlessly at Theo, and then looked to Daphne. 

The beautiful young woman looked uncomfortable, but she smiled prettily at Hermione. “Thank you,” she said in a breathy whisper. “This…” her eyes darted eloquently to the group behind Hermione who were all pretending not to stare at them, “This means a lot.” 

“I’m glad you came. Come and get a butterbeer and sit with us. Hagrid’s just telling us a story about the time he smuggled a dragon onto the school grounds during our first year, and Charlie Weasley had to come from Romania to collect her.” 

Theo’s eyebrows rose. “That sounds like qu-quite the tale.” His head bobbed slightly on the stutter and his eyes fluttered shut for a heartbeat. 

Draco kept conspicuously quiet, but he sat himself down elegantly between Daphne and Theo on the spare log beside the fire and accepted the flagon of butterbeer that Theo pressed into his hands. Hermione settled onto the very end of the log beside Theo, and they all fell quiet to listen as Hagrid picked up the thread of the story again. 

After perhaps only ten minutes, she felt Theo shift a little, and the entire length of his right thigh came to press against her left. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t indicate that he’d noticed either. The heat of his leg against hers, however, was impossible for her to ignore, and it remained there for most of the evening. She should have moved away, but she just couldn’t bring herself to shear the connection between them, and if Theo didn’t object, why should she? It was grounding somehow and she finally felt herself relax. 

People kept shooting Daphne, Draco, and Theo sidelong looks every now and again, but to her immense relief, things remained civil and the talk drifted naturally enough around the campfire, though no one openly addressed any of the three Slytherins. Daphne won some points in Padma’s favour though when she expressed a preference for the style of robes sold in Madam Malkin’s over the more upmarket Twilfitt and Tattings, to the other girl’s obvious surprise. 

“You shop at Malkin’s?” Padma blurted, exchanging a brief look at Hannah on the bench beside her. 

Daphne had the grace to blush, and nodded. “And I got the most amazing pair of socks at Gladrags last time I went to Hogsmeade too. They’re hideous and I love them to bits.” 

“It’s true,” Theo snorted, speaking up for almost the first time that evening, while Draco remained perfectly mute beside him, seemingly happy to let the conversation wash over him without comment. “They’re great knitted things like a pair of yeti-feet. She wears them around the common room all the t-time. I thought someone had had a transfiguration accident when I first saw them, but no. It was just Daphne’s vile socks.” 

Everyone laughed or chuckled, and the tension broke. If Theo had always carried that ever so slight, fluttering stammer in his voice, she’d never noticed it before now. His easy mannerisms and open features made him truly affable when he got talking, and the others obviously found themselves warming to him, despite his house and its connotations. Hermione tried not to stare openly at him, but her insides flared hot again whenever he laughed. The movement set his leg nudging against hers each time he did. 

“Maybe we could go next weekend then,” Padma said carefully to Daphne. “And you can find me some too.” 

Daphne’s answering smile was pretty, her shoulders dropping. “I’d love that.” 

As the conversation continued, Hermione stood shakily and poured herself another butterbeer. She was starting to feel a little fuzzy around the edges, but it wasn’t as if she was actually drunk. It was nice to let go just a little among people she counted as her friends. 

“Hermione, pass that extra bowl of marshmallows, will you?” Neville called at her while she still had her back to them, her tankard resting under the tap of the keg while it frothed and filled. 

“Just a minute,” she chirped back. 

From beside her, a quiet voice murmured, “Here,” and she jumped. Looking up she found Draco standing silently beside her. “I’ll do it.” 

In sheer surprise at his gracious tone, let alone at his spectrally quiet appearance, she let the mug slip away from the tap and spattered butterbeer all over her boots with a curse. With a wave of wandless, wordless magic, Draco vanished the mess and turned back to the party without comment, leaving Hermione staring after him like he’d just announced he was going to run for Muggle Prime Minister. How dare he be so god-damned smooth! And so effortlessly capable! It was downright obscene of him. 

Once he’d passed the tray over to Neville, he returned his gaze to her, mercury eyes glinting in the firelight, and he cocked his head curiously. She was still staring at him. 

Scraping her wits back together, she shook her head and managed to summon a smile for him. Perhaps it was the butterbeer that made the gesture broader than she’d intended, but Malfoy only twitched his lips in response and sat back down beside Daphne. 

About an hour after that, the evening wound down quietly, with Padma, Anthony, Hannah, and Neville leaving first, followed not long after by Ernie. When Daphne expressed a desire to head back then too, Ernie looked at her and blushed. “I’ll walk you up?” he asked awkwardly. 

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I’d like that. Hermione, should we clear up before we go?” she asked, turning to Hermione who was sitting and staring into the fire in silence and thinking. 

“Hmm? Oh, no, don’t worry. I’ll do it,” she said automatically. “Thank you though.” 

Daphne nodded, and shyly took Ernie’s offered arm while Theo raised his eyebrows at their joint departure. “Didn’t see that one coming,” he muttered into the dregs of his beer as they vanished into the night to leave just Draco, Theo, and Hermione with Hagrid and a now-sleeping Fang. 

“I thought that went well tonight, ‘Ermione,” Hagrid chuckled as he stood and hefted the keg up from the table as easily as anything, rolling it a little in his hands to check the contents. “Nearly all gone too. I can use these last dregs for a slug trap. Damned things ‘ave been tryin’ to ‘ave a go at my pumpkins for the Halloween feast! Not long to go now… Just another month.” He eyed her empty mug that dangled loosely in her fingers. “Yer gonna be alright to get back? I think you probably had half o’ that barrel yerself…” 

“Hagrid!” she exclaimed with hot indigence. “I did not. That’s not true…” 

“Mebbe not,” he snorted. “I s’pose what I really meant was… it’s nice to see yeh relaxing for once. I’ve ‘ardly seen yeh this term, and when I ‘ave, ye’ve looked like yeh did back in yer third year, what with all that work… It’s good to see yeh… well, relaxed, is all I meant…” 

“Isn’t it?” Theo agreed gently with a nudge of his knee against her thigh, and when she turned to look at him, he smiled sweetly, bringing out the deep dimples in his freckled cheeks. Good Godric, he looked handsome in the firelight. Her stomach twisted and she looked away again before she blurted something regretful. 

He and Draco were holding hands again, but subtly as always. She’d only noticed it because of the flash of Malfoy’s pale skin in the firelight, and she felt the blush in her cheeks behind the heat of the fire. 

“Let’s tidy up,” she mumbled, turning and drawing her wand to float everything back into the crate. Then she remembered what Malfoy had done wandlessly earlier that evening, and bristled. Having drawn the darned thing, though, she couldn’t very well put it away without looking like she was deliberately showing off or trying to prove herself, so she resignedly waved it and watched as all the empty plates first cleaned and then stacked themselves, and finally slotted into the box. 

“Tidy bit of magic,” Theo chuckled, now standing nearby with his and Draco’s tankards outstretched in his hands, the mugs freshly scourgified to add to the crate. “Here.” 

She took them and added them to the box, and then inhaled, on the point of levitating the lot to take it back up to the school. She was tired, and her magic fizzled reluctantly. It wouldn’t have been at all taxing, not for her, but she still stifled a yawn. 

“I’ll do it,” Theo said, gently touching her arm. She glanced down at his fingers on her hoody, slightly knuckly and, as ever, more than a bit ink-stained, and then looked up at his face. 

_How could anyone doubt your integrity?_ It was on the tip of her tongue to speak the words aloud, but instead, she hoped her eyes conveyed something of her thoughts, and she smiled. “Thanks.” 

Turning to Hagrid, Theo thanked him for letting them make use of the fire and the benches, and Hagrid replied gruffly that it was no trouble. With a pointed look at Malfoy, he said, “I s’pose yer all welcome here now, any time yeh like.” As if to confirm that, Fang heaved himself up from where he’d spent the whole evening at Hagrid’s side, basking in the heat of the flames, and padded over to Draco. 

Malfoy watched him approach warily, but he held his ground as the enormous hound huffed a low, rough, slobbery woof at him and wagged. 

Laughing, Theo said patronisingly, “Don’t be rude now, Drake. Give the good boy a p-pat on the head.” 

Immediately, Draco shot back at Theo, “I’ll give you more than a pat on the head if you keep that attitude up,” but the words carried just enough sting to be funny, and he stooped and fondled the dog’s silky ears. “Are you still - what was it Hagrid called you all those years ago? - a ‘bloody coward’, boy?” he asked the dog softly. “I don’t think so. I think you know exactly what you’re doing and what’s good for you, hmm?” 

Hermione and Theo exchanged amused glances, and then said farewell to Hagrid as Draco stood and scourgified his hands of the copious amounts of viscous dog drool coating them, again without a wand. 

“I had no idea you were so proficient at wandless magic, Draco,” she said innocently as they mounted the stairs to head back towards the school. 

“Mmm,” was all he said softly in response. 

Theo snorted. “He’s just being modest,” he said, slinging his arm around Draco’s shoulders and tugging him in close enough to smack a huge, ostentatious kiss on his cheek. “He’s quite _excellent_ with a wand too.” 

“Get off,” Draco growled, shoving Theo off him and sending him reeling into Hermione at the same time as she groaned at the horrible innuendo. She supposed she’d set that one up perfectly for him though. 

At the impact of Theo crashing into her, she staggered and nearly slipped off the path, but Theo somehow steadied his long, gangling legs and grabbed her by the upper arm to right her before she vanished into a peaty ditch. “You ok?” 

“Fine,” she said. “Thanks. But - Good _Godric_ \- after making a comment like that, it should be you tumbling down into the lake, Theo.” 

Malfoy smirked softly and Theo shrugged, hardly bothered. Then he held out his elbow; a clear invitation. “Maybe you’d better hold on to me just in case I cr-crack another one,” he said conspiratorially as Draco drew his wand to cast a lumos spell to light their way back up to the castle. 

_In for a_ _knut_ _, in for a galleon_ , she thought, and not for the first time where these two were concerned. Tucking her fingers under his elbow, she allowed herself to be steadied on the rather slippery, somewhat dewy path, and she decided that she wasn’t going to let go, even when they were on steady ground. 

Theo tucked her a little closer to him as they reached the upper slope, and offered his other arm to Draco. Theo was still using his wand in that hand to levitate the box of plates and leftovers, so he couldn't hold Draco’s hand, but Draco just shook his head fondly and linked his arm through Theo’s all the same. 

Something inside Hermione cracked painfully then, and it rendered her completely breathless for a moment. 

In that first month of term, she felt like she had found more in common with these two Slytherins - and one a former Death Eater - than she had ever had with Harry and Ron, and the way her heart clenched at the apparent and inadvertent betrayal robbed her of breath. It was like discovering a new and perfectly aligned constellation in the sky. 

With Harry and Ron, she had shared years of intense adversity and struggle, pain and joy, fear, friendship, torture, and elation, but there was something different about these two. Her magic had recognised it as well, resonating with inexpressible joy at the sensation of Theo’s magic so nearby as he cast the simple _wingardium_ _leviosa_ on the box, and even, she was shocked to find as she concentrated, it was reaching subtly for Draco’s _lumos_ spell. The twisting curiosity of her magic as it sought out Draco Malfoy was enough to make her feet stop working. The only person she’d ever felt her magic even vaguely take an interest in was Harry. 

“Hermione?” Theo asked as she ground to a halt, eyes wide. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?” he paused and then added, “If you’re going to vomit, pl-please don’t do it all over my shoes… They’re very expensive…” 

“I’m not going to be sick,” she rasped, still reeling mentally. “I… I’m fine. I’m sorry. Keep going…” 

Theo’s brows buckled into a scowl that didn’t fade even as they entered the castle a while later. When she finally let go of his arm, she saw that Draco was glowering too. 

“I’m sorry if I worried you back there,” she said, feigning a brightness in her tone that came off as brassy instead of confident. “Chalk it up to too much butterbeer?” 

Theo nodded but didn’t look in the least bit convinced. “Where shall I put this?” he asked, gesturing at the hovering crate. 

“Oh, I’ll take it down to the kitchens,” she said. “There are bound to be one or two elves up at this time still…” 

After a slow, steadying inhale, Theo looked at her intently and said very quietly, “You don’t always have to do everything for everyone, you know?” 

It wasn’t said cruelly, but her vision still swam. “I know,” she whispered, unable to conjure any more volume. “Pass it here,” she said, taking out her wand and silently casting a _wingardium_ _leviosa_ of her own. The spells interlocked like lovers’ fingers, and she bit back another gasp. They were so compatible. How had she never sensed that before now? Theo must have recognised it too because he beamed at her. 

Flushed from more than just the butterbeer, she couldn't resist a quick flick of her gaze to Draco, who twitched one corner of his pretty mouth into a quick and knowing smile. The gesture held no malice and she returned it. 

“See you tomorrow, Granger,” he said. “I’ll bring a hangover tonic to Arithmancy just in case…” 

She laughed a little at that and nodded. “Thanks for tonight. I’m really glad you and Daphne came along.” 

They shared a fleeting, silent look and then said as one, “Us too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to those who sent prompts in on Tumblr - I see them, but I've been mad-busy with work lately so writing new ones hasn't been possible just yet...


	12. Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a shock from Peeves on a routine patrol, Hermione and Theo find themselves delving into unexpectedly deep and emotional waters...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to those of you who commented and left kudos on this - it means the world, as I've said before, and you'll be pleased to know that my venomous tentacula is thriving on the engagement, so that's all good. :)
> 
> This one is... long. And I've wrestled with it long enough. Time to unleash it. There's a lot to unpack, and I just hope it conveys things the way I want it to. It's dense, and I'm sorry about that, though it does have some pockets of humour in here and there. I hope you like it anyway, and I anxiously await your responses... 
> 
> *flings another 4.7k words at you and ducks*

On the Friday night following the successful gathering at Hagrid’s, Hermione met Theo as usual outside the Slytherin Dungeons and the two fell into step beside each other with a soft smile. 

“Alright?” she asked and he nodded. 

“Mmm,” Theo smiled, hands in his pockets as usual. “You look a bit calmer than you did yesterday in Charms…” he commented conversationally as they made their way up the grand staircase. 

She made a so-so motion with her head, curls bouncing all over the place. Her last hair-tie had snapped (again) while she was getting ready to come down and meet him, and she hadn’t been able to find another one, despite doing three  _ ‘ _ _ accio _ _ ’  _ charms  _ and  _ looking in her bottomless handbag. It was as if the things had a life of their own and only chose to show up when it suited them. Dragon-pox on them.

“I finally finished off that assignment, thank Godric. I’m still tired though,” she admitted. “I can’t believe we’re not even into October yet…”

“ _ ‘ _ _ Finally _ _ ’ _ ?” he quoted, brows rising. “Flitwick doesn’t want that ’til  Chr -Christmas, Granger…”

She sighed. “Yes, but it’s easy. Time consuming, true, but easy. I’ve got that Ancient Runes translation project to finish in two weeks, and four worksheets for Arithmancy, a potions test to prepare for, and I’m supposed to be organising a Muggle Studies ‘practical’ session for the first years to learn about the basics of electricity…” 

They stepped through a panel in the wall at the top of the staircase, and she continued talking a mile a minute. 

“Electrical items don’t work at Hogwarts, of course, so we’re going to be making do with shock charms to simulate the current but still… I need to get hold of eight sets of plugs to rewire, and a few screwdrivers, though I can probably transfigure something for those…”

“Hermione, that’s nuts,” Theo said with his usual bluntness. “I’m sorry, and I know you care about school, but seriously, all you technically have to do this year is get four N.E.W.T’s —”

“— Six,” she corrected. 

“— Five,” he shot back immediately. “You’ve already taken one and you aced it. Why the fuck you’re even still going to Transfiguration classes is beyond me.”

“I’m not,” she admitted, stepping under the tapestry that Theo had just hauled back for her and pausing in the mouth of the pitch black passageway beyond. “I went to McGonagall yesterday - after Charms, as it happens - and had myself taken off the class list.” 

It hurt confessing it aloud just to Theo, but even Hermione wasn’t too proud to admit that taking a class when she didn’t even need to was pretty bonkers. The tangible relief as she’d walked back from the headmistress’ study, with the great griffin statue rumbling back into place behind her with a thunderous and finite boom, had confirmed the rightness of the choice. 

“Well, thank fuck for that.” Theo let the tapestry drop and swore as they were plunged into complete darkness. “ _ Lumos _ ,” he whispered, right in her ear. 

She never got the chance to shiver though at his rich, slightly rough baritone. 

The light from his wand-tip washed over her and revealed Peeves standing there waiting for them, mere inches from her face. He lunged at her and she screamed and flailed backwards, careering into Theo while Peeves cackled maniacally and did a backwards roll in the air. Even as she fell, however, her reflexes from the war had apparently not faded, because a split second after he had pelted at her out of the darkness she yelled - without a wand - “ _ protego _ !” and a wall of energy burst out of her, sweeping the poltergeist along the corridor like scum down a plughole, and she stood there afterwards, leaning against Theo’s body, breathing hard and shaking. 

“Hermione?” Theo asked softly, hands tentatively touching her shoulders. “It’s alright… It was just Peeves.”

“I know,” she panted. “Bloody hell… He scared the life out of me.”

Turning to glance back at him over her shoulder, she found a look of awe on his handsome face, and it was only as they made their way down the rest of the narrow connecting passageway - with no sign of the stunned poltergeist anywhere to be seen - that she realised he’d probably never seen true action in the war. He’d been evacuated with the rest of them before the Battle of Hogwarts and hadn’t witnessed the carnage of exploding masonry and mangled bodies piled up in familiar hallways. Lucky him.

“Dammit,” she hissed as the familiar trembling of delayed shock swept over her in a nauseous wave.

“Hey,” he said, physically turning her to look at him. “It’s ok. You’re ok.”

“I know that,” she snapped, brushing him off and stepping away. “But… apparently my body doesn’t.”

“Easy,” he said, steering her carefully over to the side of the new, wider corridor and setting her down on a stone ledge in the thick wall. “Take a minute… Take as long as you need.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said as, to her horror, tears welled up and she covered her face. All she’d done lately, it seemed, was burst into tears around Theo. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was some dramatic crybaby with a penchant for theatrics.

Sweeping her hands through her hair, she tried to pull herself together with only mixed success. Adrenaline still coursed through her, her magic boiling protectively through her body, as she kept replaying Peeves’ ugly, gleeful face shooting out of the darkness at her over and over like the looming mask of a Death Eater. With a low growl of frustration, she screwed her eyes shut to try and stop the loop. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll be alright in a minute and we can carry on.”

Theo looked horrified at her words. “Don’t apologise, Hermione.  _ Merlin _ , you don’t have to apologise. I’ve said the same thing to Draco when he wakes in the middle of the night and doesn't even know his own name. I’ve seen what that war did to the people at the heart of it, Hermione. It’s ok. T-Take your time and let me know if you need anything from me.”

Inhaling slowly through her nose, she opened her eyes again. His words eventually filtered through the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears and she looked sharply up at Theo. “Malfoy has nightmares?”

“And some,” Theo muttered darkly. 

Not wishing to pry into Malfoy’s private business, she sat there for a while, just breathing in the cool, slightly musty, damp air which carried with it the steadying weight of the castle itself. The aged edifice had weathered the very worst of storms, and it had endured. Drawing on that strength, Hermione thought about the gentler side of Malfoy that she’d glimpsed that term - with firelight licking along his white hair in particular - and of the silent, haunted young man he’d become since sixth year. Knowing he had nightmares too brought home how similar they were in so many ways; how affected they had both been by the horrors of the past few years.

Her magic twisted gently inside her, as if seeking him out again, and she frowned. Looking askance at Theo, she murmured, “Malfoy doesn’t hate me any more, does he?”

An odd look flickered through his eyes at that. The lapis lazuli of the irises was shot through with gold and bronze from the flickering torches on the wall in this part of the castle, and it made him look almost tearful, though his voice was steady enough when he replied. “The results of his ‘misguided’ upbringing notwithstanding… Draco has never hated you. In fact, I think you’ll find he’s rather admired you. For years.”

“Oh please… He was always so…  _ awful _ ,” she scoffed.

Theo's hollow laugh rumbled down the stone hallway before he replied. “You don’t believe me?”

“No,” she said, and then thought about her answer more closely. “No, not for… no…”

“Alright,” Theo said, turning a little more to face her as he sat beside her on the stone bench. He seemed to hesitate for just a moment and then he clearly reached a decision. “Imagine this: Draco has been brought up to believe that all  muggleborns are scum - second rate citizens, who have no t-talent and no integrity or dignity - whose very existence poses a threat to our entire world by their connections to the muggle one… and then he meets  _ you  _ on his first day here, and finds in you all that’s good and honourable and enviable.”

He swallowed, watching her closely, and she sat up a little, staring at him, dumbstruck and still a touch nauseous, though her shock was fading as she listened to his soft voice. 

Theo angled his head a fraction as he continued. “That fact alone clashes so starkly with what he’s been made to believe that  eleven year old Draco simply cannot reconcile the two. He loves his mother and idolises his father, and they both clearly love him in their own ways, but… their teachings just don’t align at all with what he knows deep down to be true about  _ you _ ; with what he witnesses with his own eyes on a daily basis.” 

Theo paused to let that sink in before he continued. She’d thought about parts of this before now of course, but with Theo laying it all out beneath her like a silk carpet, all intricate designs and perfectly ordered patterns, it began to make a little sense. 

“He’s confused. Hermione Granger - muggleborn - is worthy of being the Chosen One’s friend, but Draco Malfoy - with a pureblood pedigree the length of Britain - isn’t? She gets real friendship while he’s rejected by Potter and gets sycophants and blood purists seeking his favour.”

“He had you,” she cut in numbly, and he nodded. 

“That he did. But he’s a child, then a young man, and he’s being pushed and pulled in all directions by people he trusted, looked up to, respected… And at the same time  _ everything  _ he knew is repeatedly called into question by you and your heroic friends. And you’re always coming out on top; always winning, while his ‘side’ - the ‘right’ side, if all that supremacist teaching is to be believed - flounders again and again.” He sighed heavily. “Despite everything, there you remain untarnished: Hermione Granger, one third of the Golden Trio.”

She wanted to scoff at that, but something in Theo’s grave expression kept her silent. This mattered deeply to him, and it was an insight into the real Draco Malfoy, into the shattered facets of him kept hidden away beneath his cold, sarcastic exterior. 

“Then everything Draco thought he knew is just gone, ripped out from under him when he sees first hand what Voldemort actually stands for; what he’s capable of. Murdering dear old Hogwarts teachers in his own dining room and feeding them to his pet snake while they can all only sit there and watch… Unleashing his own aunt on his classmates… Murdering cohorts of people in his dining room and turning the place that had been his home into a bloodbath…”

Her stomach turned over and she thought for a moment she was going to be sick. Looking down, she blinked and inhaled steadily. Theo paused too, taking the time to rein his own emotions in by the sound of his breathing. She’d witnessed some horrendous things, but nothing like that; day after day after day…

“Everything is gone or completely corrupted, except for what he found to be true in you. That’s the one thing that’s never changed. So he just buries his feelings under a pile of defensive vitriol and hopes they’ll eventually go away as well.” 

Theo cleared his throat and looked down the shadowy, flickering corridor. Hermione could barely breathe as Theo spoke, and even he sounded choked. Was he really simply telling her all this about his boyfriend so willingly? Why? So she’d like him more? So that she’d forgive him? But then what? What did telling her all this really achieve?

After he’d collected himself, Theo went on with surprising note of humour in his tone. “Of course, those buried feelings for you don’t go away at all. The seed grows into a fuck-off huge plant, if you will, and from there it blossoms inside him in secret. Good job he’s an immensely talented occlumens - seriously, he’s freaky good - or who knows what V-Voldemort and anyone else could have discovered about the depths of his admiration for you. That incident at the Manor could have gone even worse for you…” he finished darkly.

Hermione shuddered and just sat there in stunned silence. Finally, she levelled him with a look and croaked, “But... wait... are you saying that he…?” She shook her head, unleashing an avalanche of curls into her face as she tried to clear the daze in her spinning brain. “Theo, just what are you saying?”

He fixed Hermione with his steady, sapphire stare. Openly, and apparently without guile or resentment, he said, “I’m saying that he’s handled his giant fucking crush on you with spectacularly poor judgement over the years. He’s treated you the opposite of how you deserve in the past, but… yes… Draco has carried a torch for you for almost as long as he’s known you.”

“I… I don’t believe it... I... I can’t...” she faltered. Draco Malfoy  _ admired  _ her? Impossible. All this time, he’d lashed out with insults about her inferior blood status, and physical appearance. “He was always so cruel and petty and…  _ awful _ .” She blinked, staggered. “He’s different now; I’m not too stubborn to admit that, but —” A new thought crashed through her brain like a hippogriff in a china shop. “Wait, you’re... are  _ you  _ alright with that? With knowing that your  _ boyfriend  _ has a ‘giant fucking crush’ on me - if he even does, which seems highly improbable to me...”

“He does. We’ve talked about it.”

How could he be so calm about this? “Draco’s discussed this —” she gestured vaguely with her hand  “ — hypothetical crush on me. With you? His  _ boyfriend _ …” she asked flatly, astonished, her panic over Peeves all but forgotten in the face of this next earth-shattering discovery.

Sitting back against the wall and crossing his arms casually, Theo nodded and smirked slightly; even smugly. “Mmhmm,” he hummed merrily. “More than once.” He looked like there was more to that story, but she didn’t want to touch that with a barge pole. She had enough to process just then.

“And you’re not... It’s not weird for you? Knowing that? Theo, that’s a big deal! You’re in a relationship with him… I’m not… I’m not looking to start any trouble here…” Hermione felt like she was hallucinating. This was not where she’d envisaged her evening going. Not at all. 

“Let me explain something else to you then,” he said gently. “Draco and I have known each other since we were both sucking on our mother’s tits, and imbibing the same pureblood supremacist bullshit along with it, I might add. I know him. I know how he thinks and I know what he cares for; what  dr -drives him. Above all else, he cares  _ intensely  _ for the very few people he loves, and once he’s let you past all those walls, that’s it for him. There’s no holding anything back and there’s no turning back either. Once he trusts you, that’s it - he’s yours. He tells me... everything, Hermione. There are no secrets between us. And that includes him telling me that he’s had a ‘giant fucking crush’ on you for years, though not in so few words. He’s also assured me he has no intention of leaving me, but that’s also a part of him.”

Hermione exhaled slowly, gears spinning furiously in her mind as she struggled to process it all. Draco Malfoy truly had a crush on her? Part of it made sense, she supposed. The old - and frankly rather repulsive - maxim about boys teasing girls they liked floated across her churning mind too. 

“You know,” Theo mused after a very long pause. “You’re honestly taking this all rather well. I can’t imagine too many girls would be so... accepting…”

“Oh, I’m not accepting,” she said coldly and Theo blanched. “Not about everything anyway. I don’t  _ accept  _ what happened to me - what was done to me and my friends, and by Malfoy too in part I might add,” she said tightly. “But I… I think I have forgiven Draco. I think I forgave him when I saw him standing in Voldemort’s embrace just when we thought he’d killed Harry. He looked so lost… so broken… so… so full of regret.” 

Casting her eyes up at Theo, she saw that his own were glassy. He offered her a weak, fleeting smile that carried none of his usual suave charm. It was open, and honest, and very, very shy. 

“Theo, thank you for telling me about… all of that… I’d guessed some of it, but a lot of it I’ve never thought about it all that way.” 

She sighed and glanced away. 

“Maybe that’s why I’m… I’m ok with knowing he is capable of feelings like admiration and… whatever else.” After a moment she added quietly, “You know… thinking about it… I don’t know how differently I might have acted in his shoes, given everything I know about him… He had no choice really, did he?”

Theo remained quiet, but nodded pensively. His face had taken on a solemn, almost regretful expression, and she wondered if he was regretting telling her all this, out of the blue like that. It had felt natural, but still, it was a lot to take on board without any kind of warning. 

Forging on, she said, “I wish I had the guts to tell him that I forgive him to his face, but he always looks like he’s going to implode whenever I try to talk to him for longer than a minute - especially if it’s on a topic that’s not homework.” She trailed off and realised she was coiling her hair around her finger again. “I got pretty close to it the other day when he walked me back to Gryffindor Tower though. It was on the tip of my tongue for most of the way back.”

“Honestly, he probably  _ would  _ implode if you made it past that  one minute marker, but I reckon you should persevere.”

“If he doesn’t lash out or walk away first...” she growled. “He’s very good at just… leaving or getting defensive,” she said, despite the fact that he’d been better lately. In particular, the soft smiles from the night of the bonfire drifted across her mind like those little sparks from the fire. Then the memory of the touch of his palm against hers made her breath hitch. 

Perhaps Theo was right. Perhaps she could see it now, in the vulpine snarling she’d always witnessed from Malfoy whenever things got too real, too close to the mark. Like a cornered animal, Draco snapped and sneered to keep people away, and he had wanted -  _ needed? _ \- to keep her furthest from him for so many reasons; selfish and altruistic. It didn't excuse the behaviour itself, she thought, but it did go some way to explaining it. 

Theo seemed to be letting her mull it all over in her mind, leaning his back casually enough against the stonework, but she caught the sidelong looks he shot at her every so often. Again it was as though he was worried he’d said too much. Finally, he asked, “I c-could tell him to give you a chance if you like...?”

“We both know he’d balk at that.”

Shaking his head, which tossed his lovely curls about, Theo said, “No. Not if it’s c-coming from me. Like I said, we’ve been friends since we were both sucking —“

“— If I have to think about Narcissa Malfoy’s tits for a second time in one evening, I will hex your balls off, Theodore Nott,” she said quickly.

His grin went delightfully wonky and he chuckled, finally relaxing a little, shoulders dropping. “Fair enough.”

“But... tell me something...?”

“Anything.”

“That’s quite the open-ended promise, Nott...” she breathed, stunned, but he just shrugged.

“I’ve got no reason to hide anything from you,  _ Granger _ . Not about this.”

Oddly enough, the use of her surname felt like a term of endearment this time. “Alright. If he’s with you, and you’re with him, but he’s got this supposed crush on me, where does that leave us two?”

“Unresolved?” Theo suggested, a fae light in his eyes.

“He’s bi then?”

“We both are, though I think he’s... ah, I don’t know how to explain it. He’s been with me and he’s been with Pansy, but that’s it. He’s sexual with me —“

“—don’t need that image, again, Theo!” she interjected quickly, cheeks colouring at the memory.

“That image is a treasure, Granger, and you know it,” he said nudging her with his shoulder, clearly deflecting. “But seriously, he’s not the kind of guy who wets his wand with just anyone... He could have had his pick of Slytherins, and trust me, he had girls - and one or two guys - practically flinging themselves at him over the years for all sorts of reasons. But he’s just... not interested that way.”

“He seemed pretty interested in the library…” she groused, still not meeting Theo’s eye.

Theo snorted. “Like I said - he can be very sexual with me, but he says it’s because he knows me so well. He’s also known Pansy since they were —”

“— If you bring them up again, I swear to Merlin...”

“I was going to say ‘ _ since they were five _ ’. Narcissa’s tits weren’t involved any more at that stage.”

“I hate you so much,” Hermione laughed, smearing the last of the drying tears off her cheeks and puffing her cheeks out with a huge sigh.

Theo’s spine slumped and it felt as if they were barrelling out of a dark, oppressive tunnel into the daylight again. “I’m sorry, Granger,” he said. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. It just… kind of happened.” He swallowed thickly. “Are we still good?”

She had a lot to unpick. Theodore Nott, devoted boyfriend of an apparently equally devoted Draco Malfoy, had just told her in no uncertain terms that his  _ boyfriend  _ had had something of a crush on her for years, and that quite possibly, he still did. And what did that say about Theo? Probably that he really was secure enough in his relationship with Draco not to take it as a threat, and her heart sank a little, though whether it was relief or disappointment that weighed it down, she couldn’t have said, and didn’t care to examine too closely just then. 

And where did all that leave her? Unresolved? She nearly curled her lip at that. It would take some going over in her own mind to figure out her feelings on everything he’d told her that night. 

Hermione leaned against the castle wall behind her and tilted her head back to rest it on the cool stone. She took another long inhale, held it, and let it go slowly. Finally, she answered him. “I don’t want to get in the way of anything, Theo,” she murmured quietly a while later. “You two are… well, you’re perfect for each other. I’ve noticed the way you soften Malfoy’s sharp edges, and he makes you… I don’t know, he seems to make you playful somehow.”

“Playful?” he grinned, seemingly surprised by the idea. 

“Mmm. You can be very serious otherwise. You certainly always used to be.” Her few memories of Theo before this year had been of a studious boy who kept himself to himself, but now he was tall and outgoing and handsome, and was even working his charismatic charm on one or two of the other Gryffindors. It wasn’t just Hermione who was warming up to him, but even Ginny, who could be loyal to the point of prejudice, had found one or two nice things to say about him. Neville too, since the party at Hagrid’s. 

Curious, he cocked his head slightly. “I s-suppose he does,” he said with a slight laugh. “He’s been there for me… through… everything. I love him to pieces, Hermione.”

“I can see that,” she said, and he gave a choked half-grimace. 

Theo seemed to grow suddenly nervous then, as though something else fizzed away inside him, creating words he wanted to speak but wasn’t sure how to begin. He toyed with his hands in his lap, running his right thumb over his left knuckles back and forth, back and forth. It was unusual for him to be so uncertain of himself, and if he’d got through all of that about Malfoy with barely a stammer, what could possibly be worse than that for him? So she sat and waited him out, eyes half closed as she rested against the alcove wall, still mulling everything over. 

Eventually, Theo said, “So… Listen… I was going to ask you this tonight anyway, before all that…” he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the vast swathe of impromptu conversation they’d just waded through. “So I know we kind of missed your birthday, and you probably wouldn’t have wanted to spend it with me and Draco then anyway, but… would you like to go into Hogsmeade this weekend with us? Maybe have dinner?”

Her eyebrows rose. Of all the things she’d been expecting, that had definitely not been it. He’d sat there in choking silence for so long before asking that, that she’d half convinced herself he was going to tell her that he didn't want to be friends with her any more or something stupid. 

“Too much?” he asked when she didn’t answer him straight away. “We could just get drinks at the Three Broomsticks, or even j-just walk there and back… I—”

She silenced him by placing her hand on his thigh, just above his knee. He was more toned than he looked; not just a lanky bean-pole. “Theo,” she said gently. “Relax.”

“Easier said than done, love,” he quipped, gaze flashing pointedly down to her hand. 

She withdrew her touch immediately, flushing. “I… I was just going to say I’d actually like that.” Pausing, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Ron brought me a birthday cake that his mother made, but other than sharing it with the Gryffindors in the common room, I didn’t… I didn’t actually celebrate my birthday on my own terms.” She sighed, feeling like she was coming across as ungrateful. “Harry and Ron sent me a card and came to visit for a few hours, which was honestly lovely, and you and Draco inadvertently gave me one hell of a show, but… I… I haven’t done anything that was… just for me, you know?”

Theo’s smile was gentle and soft, his dimples achingly sweet. “Alright,” he nodded. “Let’s do something ‘just for you’. What would you like best?”

Still finding it hard to believe that all this was real, she pursed her lips. “… Perhaps… Well, I like your idea of an understated meal somewhere. Maybe we could try that new place, Batwing and Blossom?” 

Again, Theo nodded. “That we can do. Listen, Hermione, I don’t want it to be weird between you and Draco… or… between you and me, ok? We… We both think you’re incredible and talented and obviously very, very beautiful, and…” he took a deep breath that made her heart stop beating, the cold anticipation of what was to come next filling her up until she felt like she might just pass out from it. “Whatever you want, with or from either of us - or both - is… is ok.”

She swallowed. “Theo,” she breathed, desperately trying to apply the brakes so that she could process even half of what had occurred between them that night. He paled, freckles standing out lividly against his usually tanned skin in the torchlight. “I think I’d very much like to spend the evening with both of you.”

He took a deep, slightly shaky breath and then smiled, both dimples glinting. He took her hand briefly and squeezed her fingers. Standing up, he tugged her with him and she almost toppled into him from the momentum, but he steadied her easily enough. 

Breathless, and a little giddy, she looked up at him. He seemed so carefree suddenly, so joyous. “Dinner in Hogsmeade it is then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whuffff, did you make it to the end? What a lot for Hermione to process, eh? Looking forward to hearing what you have to say, and what you thought of it all. I think...! Take care, and stay safe.


	13. Daphne and Draco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daphne drops by on a study period to talk to Hermione, and during a restless evening, Hermione ventures down towards the Slytherin Dungeons on her own...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can't believe that this has had 6k+ hits! Thank you to those of you who are engaging in this story, and to those of you who've left comments, I cannot tell you how much it means that you're enjoying it and leaving me the most wonderful comments!!! My venomous tentacula is definitely well nourished on your feedback, and I'm thinking of buying another one to keep it company :D. 
> 
> Seriously though, thank you. Also my venomous tentacula would like to jab a stray tentacle up at the tag 'slow burn' and just... remind you of that... 
> 
> *flings this at you and hides*
> 
> *lurks under an invisibility cloak to see your reactions*

It had been three weeks since that conversation in the hallway, where Theo had dropped the proverbial bombshell of Draco’s apparent and longstanding admiration for her, and during what free time she’d had, Hermione had replayed it over and over in her mind until she felt sure it was all going to warp and vanish like a damaged VHS tape. 

Draco had suffered as much as, if not more than, any of them who had been at the heart of things during the war, and while she could forgive him for that a hundred times over, and at the drop of the sorting hat, she still wasn’t one hundred percent sure how she felt about the vicious things he’d said to her and others over the years, and the cruel way he’d behaved. She was as divided over her opinion of him as he apparently had been about her - the muggleborn who also happened to be the ‘brightest witch of her age’. Oh how she loathed that phrase. Did people not realise the pressure that heaped upon her? The expectations? 

From time to time, she would catch herself staring intently at Malfoy during classes - to the point that she actually missed an instruction from Professor Vector and flushed crimson trying to catch up. Theo had shot her a puzzled look, but she’d ignored it. Their patrols had been very mundane of late, and both had skirted around the obvious erumpment in the room. Theo was clearly waiting for her to make up her mind, but she wasn’t sure how much longer he’d give her. 

From what she could gather from their attitudes in class, Theo had not told Draco what he’d said to her that night, and for that, she could almost have kissed him. He was quite clearly giving her the chance to work through it all on her own. Draco, meanwhile, seemed to spend the entirety of his free time on the quidditch pitch, which rather threw their plans for dinner into disarray. With the first fixture of the House Cup slated for the first weekend in November, the Slytherin team appeared to be going all out this year in their attempts to beat Gryffindor. From what Ginny said, it sounded like they might have been in with a solid chance too. It would be a tense match for sure.

“I’m sorry we haven’t fixed anything for your dinner yet,” Theo had muttered at the end of their patrol. Hermione had spent most of the first weekend after ‘the conversation’ in the library anyway, making headway with her backlog of homework, Draco had trained in the most atrocious thunderstorm of the season yet, and Theo had been looking a little stressed over the students he was tutoring. Ever since then, they had never found a time to get together. 

“It’s fine. We could probably all use time  to ourselves anyway. Are you alright?”

He nodded but didn’t look entirely convincing. She didn’t press him, and they finished up, parting with a brief smile on the Grand Staircase. She wondered if Theo regretted opening himself up to her like that, and blurting all of Draco’s secrets to her in the dark. If it had driven a wedge - however unknowingly - between the two boys, she knew she’d feel awful about it, and Theo was the kind of person to keep something like that from her. 

During her free period on a Wednesday midway into October, Hermione found herself in her usual spot in the library, surrounded by Charms textbooks. She still had six inches of essay left to complete, and she still resented the idea that it was  _ quantity  _ that would satisfy the constraints of the homework assignment as much as the quality. In her earlier years at the school, she had sought to subvert this by writing three or four times the required  _ quantity _ , while ensuring it was of top quality all the way through. Now, she wrote exactly the required quantity, and of her usual quality. 

“Hermione?” a quiet, feminine voice she didn’t immediately recognise broke through her concentration and she looked up to find Daphne Greengrass standing beside her otherwise deserted table. “Sorry to interrupt you. I’ve been meaning to catch you for ages now, but you’ve always looked so busy… in such a rush…” She tucked a strand of her long, straight, blonde hair behind her ear, revealing a simple silver stud earring, and she swallowed nervously. “Do you have a minute?”

Curious, and honestly grateful for the interruption, she nodded and sat back. “Of course.” When Daphne smiled at her answer, Hermione waved her hand at the chair across the table from her. 

“Thanks,” Daphne said. She didn’t take the seat though, and instead fiddled with a delicate, filigree ring on the middle finger of her right hand. “Listen, I won’t stay long, but I just wanted to thank you for the other week… for inviting us to the bonfire…”

“Oh,” she smiled, satisfaction warming her as the solution to this little mystery visit presented itself. “You don't need to thank me, Daphne,” she said, although it really must have meant something to her if she was still thinking about it so fondly all these weeks later. “Seriously, I’m glad you three were able to come. There’s too much bad blood between all of us to let things go on unchanged. Did you have at least a bit of fun?”

“Yes,” she said shyly. Daphne had never been a real presence in the way that Pansy had, but she’d never taken her for a shrinking violet, so to speak, either. “Honestly, it’s been the highlight of this term so far.”

“Really?” 

Daphne nodded, and Hermione felt a pang of guilt, wondering if she should have made more effort to include her sooner. 

“Well, if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure you’d even come, but I’m really glad you did.”

Daphne smiled. “Not going to lie, it was touch and go for a little while.” 

“Oh?”

“Mmm. Draco wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I convinced him to come.”

“You did?” she asked, and when Daphne’s face expressed polite confusion, Hermione chuckled. “I’m sorry. I just imagined that Theo would be the one to chivvy him out to a party like that…”

“True,” Daphne admitted. “Theo’s always the one who gets Draco to come to common room parties… They never stay very long though. Can’t say I blame them - they’re not usually all that good. I bet Gryffindors know how to throw a party.”

“Not as well as a Hufflepuff…” she smirked. A thought occurred to Hermione and she asked, “Have you known Draco for long? I mean… like Theo has? Before Hogwarts?”

She smiled and took the seat at last. “Socially, yes, but not like Theo. There was actually talk at one point of an alliance between our houses, but my parents weren’t so keen to marry me off to someone without my having a say in it, nor Astoria.”

“How progressive of them,” she snipped before she could stop herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —” she began but Daphne cut her off. 

“They are,” she said. “Progressive, I mean. They always told us that they were wary of Voldemort’s plans —” Unlike a lot of Slytherins, Draco and Theo included, Daphne said the former Dark Lord’s name without hesitation “— but because of his fixation on blood purity, and what with us being among the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’, they didn’t dare make too much of a fuss. But they could endure tea with Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy on occasion to keep up appearances, so I got to know Draco a little as a child.”

She couldn't help smiling. “What was he like?”

“Quiet,” she said, a distant look in her blue eyes. “He was usually reading in a corner and refused to engage with us unless his mother called him over. He was extremely shy.”

“Draco Malfoy was a shy child? I can’t believe it!” she scoffed. And yet… without Voldemort’s lingering influence, it seemed as though he’d defaulted to that state once again; not exactly shy, but definitely withdrawn. 

Daphne nodded. “Only Theo could really make him laugh. They used to spend hours out in the grounds together, and it made me so jealous to see them running around on the lawn, scuffing their knees, or knocking each other off their brooms…” she sighed.

“So you’ve known Theo for a long time too…?” 

She nodded, but didn’t say much more. Just as conversation stalled and it began to get awkward, she said, “Draco's different now, isn't he? You must have spotted it, of course, or you wouldn’t be prepared to stand up for him the way you do.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “He sounds rather like the boy you just described…”

Daphne’s pretty mouth twitched into a smile. “People are still afraid of him. Or they look down on him.”

“I’ve noticed,” she said darkly. “Even though he was largely acquitted in court.”

“He’s still on probation,” Daphne countered gently. “One wrong move, and he’s off to Azkaban to join his father.”

She shuddered. “What a sword to have dangling over your head the whole time…”

“People are surprised you’re being as generous towards us as you are, you know?”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Generous?”

“I heard a Slytherin fifth year saying she saw you and Draco leaving the library together one evening. I don't know what she was more scandalised about: a Slytherin like Draco and a Gryffindor like you getting along so well, or the fact that Hermione Granger had not immediately hexed Draco Malfoy into the middle of last week…”

Hermione remembered the girl who’d spotted them, and it prompted another memory about the book he’d carried. “I think we’re all moving past all that. Besides, we weren’t actually in here together,” she said carefully. “He was just leaving the Restricted Section with a book on Hereditary Pureblood Curses -” she’d looked the title up in the catalogue since, though she’d left it at that. “He offered to walk me back to Gryffindor Tower after we had something of a reconciliation.”

Daphne's already pale cheeks had gone a shade lighter and her eyes were wide. 

“Daphne? Are you alight?”

“Yes,” she chirped, blinking. “Did he… say what the book was for?”

She shook her head. “I offered to help, but he said it wasn’t my area of expertise, or something.”

“Right,” Daphne said, clearing her throat. “Well, look, I won’t hold you up any more, but I just wanted to catch you and say thank you for including us.”

“My pleasure,” she said, and indeed it had been, despite this abrupt departure. “We should do something similar again some time, though it’s probably getting a bit chilly now outside. I’m pleased you enjoyed it.”

“We did,” she said, standing and looking at her with a warm smile in her rather wan cheeks. “I… I went into Hogsmeade with Padma on Saturday.”

“You buy any more hideous socks?” Hermione asked with a playful smile, hoping to distract her from whatever she’d said to upset the girl, and Daphne’s cheeks flushed. 

She nodded. “Yes. And Padma bought some for Parvati too.”

Hermione couldn’t help the short bark of laughter that escaped her, and earned her a frustrated ‘shush’ from two bookshelves over. She just rolled her eyes. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

“Maybe we can go one weekend. I hear that McGonagall is making something of the Halloween Feast this year… with some kind of dance or party afterwards. I’ll probably get a new dress, if… if you wanted to come with me.”

Did she? She  _ loathed  _ shopping almost as much as quidditch, but she could recognise an olive branch when she saw one, and nodded. Aside from Ginny, Hermione didn’t really have any close female friends at the school, and Luna - nice as she was - was more likely to be found roaming the forest barefoot, handing out hunks of meat to thestrals than she was to be spotted shopping in  Gladrags . “Sure. That would be nice.”

“Great. Anyway, I have to run. I’m meeting Toria in a minute or two,” she said, checking an elegant, silver-toned watch that Hermione suspected was probably white gold. 

“Toria?” 

“My sister, Astoria.”

“Oh, of course,” Hermione said. “Say hello to her for me.”

And with that, Daphne was gone. 

Something warm and honey-like kindled in the pit of Hermione’s stomach at the thought of maybe making another friend, even at this late stage in her school career. Daphne wasn’t particularly academic, and the subjects she was taking included Divination of all things, but she was clearly kind, and more than that, she was isolated. And that was something they definitely had in common, to one extent or another. 

It proved impossible to regain her focus after that, so Hermione packed up and headed to Gryffindor Tower. There she found Ginny and half of the quidditch team gathered around the wireless as the Chudley Cannons took an absolute thrashing from the Falmouth Falcons. 

“Mione!” Ginny hissed, frantically waving her over and patting the empty seat beside her. “Come sit! It’s just getting good! They’re starting to fight back!”

“Might even pull a win out of the bag!” someone else chimed in.

She fixed her friend with a false, ‘put-upon’ look, but dropped her bag and flopped down beside her anyway. 

As the noise of the common room washed over her, she leaned back against the faded red cushions behind her and sighed. She could almost hear Ron’s voice in the intonations of Ginny’s exclamations as she yelled at the Cannons beaters to get it together, or cursing as the Falcons’ seeker made a terrifyingly bold dive for the snitch. 

Despite the frenetically chaotic cacophony raging all around her, Hermione felt almost peaceful, and she let her mind wander where it willed. It gradually found its drifting, meandering way to another quidditch player. Draco, dressed in his green and beige kit, standing in the doorway to the great hall with two birthday cards in his long fingers. He’d still been wary of her then, of her reaction to him, but like Daphne, he’d extended an olive branch to her, and had smiled when she accepted it. 

She wondered if the Slytherin Common Room looked similar to this one, with figures gathered around, yelling at the wireless, whooping and shouting, flinging arms into the air and slapping the arms of the sofas in consternation when the team’s fortune spun on a sickle. It probably did. 

Without a word, she rose. 

Ginny was too wrapped up in the game to offer much more than a hasty, “See you!” as she left, and Hermione walked down through the winding passages of the castle, and about halfway down, she made up her mind, and soon found herself in the entrance hall. 

The wall to the Slytherin dungeons remained solid, but she licked her lips and spoke the current password. Knowing it was a privilege all the prefects possessed, and it was not one to be abused. However, she figured she could get a free pass this time, and use it to find Theo and Draco. Excitement bubbled inside her, feeling like she was committing some heinous transgression, and she almost laughed as she recalled the lengths they’d gone to in their second year to get in here. Now she was waltzing in as easy as anything. All she needed was a bit of courage.

Finding and drawing on that deep well of Gryffindor spirit, she stepped into the long, downward-sloping passage and followed the sounds of jollity that matched almost exactly the Gryffindor ones, rising and falling in time with what had to be a quidditch commentary. “Not so different from the rest of us after all,” she muttered ruefully to herself. 

Torches lined the stone walls of the narrow corridor that wound ever downwards, and as she descended towards the heart of Slytherin territory, she began to wonder if this wasn’t actually an extremely stupid idea. She paused when the top of a spiral staircase drew into sight up ahead, her hand on the wall, heart thudding. Whatever had possessed her to step into the snake pit! 

Turning, she left and hurried up the corridor again, but a voice from behind made her halt. “Granger?” 

The softly-articulated consonants, the barely-there baritone of his voice which held no sneer, no derision, only puzzlement, made her turn. 

“Draco,” she said with a nervous laugh bubbling around the syllables of his name. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, stalking over to her like a silver panther. 

Alone with him in the narrow corridor, she gazed up at him as he halted in front of her, and she smiled. The gilding torchlight made him look unreal somehow, like a veela or perhaps even a ghost. His white hair was lightly ruffled, wavy and soft, his eyes glimmered and shifted from the flames in the sconces, and the sharp angles of his face showed only intense curiosity. His shirt was deliciously untucked too, and she wondered if he’d recently been with Theo. 

“Granger?” he prompted again in almost a whisper. 

She smiled. “Honestly, I was looking for you,” she said. 

“Here?”

Hermione’s smile widened. “You are a Slytherin, are you not?” she giggled. 

His face softened from curiosity to amusement. “Through and through, Granger,” he purred. He twitched his eyebrows and said, “You want to walk or stand here in the snake pit?”

“Not going to lie,” she said as he mirrored her own thoughts, “My courage is beginning to run dry.”

“Impossible,” he murmured with a slight, breathy chuckle to the word. “Come on.” 

The two of them headed back up the corridor and the wall rippled into nothing as they approached it and stepped back out into the entrance hall. Beyond the open doors, a thick, misty drizzle was falling around the castle, but the two of them headed into the portico and stood watching it fall. 

“I was wondering when you might be given a moment off from all that quidditch training to go into Hogsmeade,” she said after a while of amicable silence. “I’m assuming Theo told you about that?” And hopefully not about the rest of it, she added silently to herself.

He nodded, arms crossed over his chest, left shoulder leaning against the stonework, left ankle crossed casually over his right. Draco stared off at the veiled grounds beyond as if the secrets of the universe lay out there. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. “He did,” was all he said. 

“Well? I realise you’re the linchpin of the entire Slytherin team, and the finest seeker since Harry, but surely they don’t want to work you into the ground?”

He managed a soft smirk at that, ignoring her little jibe completely. “How would you know? You’ve not seen me fly in years.”

“I have, actually,” she said and that made him look at her sharply, though not unkindly. With an amused smile, she said, “I came to the tryouts with Ginny on my birthday, and —”

“— Hermione Granger watched quidditch on her birthday?” he interjected, raising one eyebrow. 

“Why is everyone so surprised that I’d be willing to support my friends?” she huffed. The damp was making her hair swell in volume, but there was nothing she could do about that. “I’ve actually just come from sitting in a common room full of people yelling at the Chudley Cannons. I’m not allergic to quidditch, Malfoy. I just find it…”

“Boring?”

“No! If you must know, I think my aversion to it comes from my best friend nearly getting killed in almost every match I’ve ever watched him in. It’s a ludicrously dangerous sport for adults to play, let alone children. I remember you coming a cropper a few times, and did you know that Felicity Felterwick ended up in St. Mungo’s for a year and a half after her injury with the Harpies?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, returning his silver gaze to the shimmering rain once more. “But what you probably don’t understand is the release it brings too. When it’s just you and the broom and the elements… You’re a cog in the wheel of your team, sure, but… nothing else can exist when you’re flying. You can’t think about obligations or arguments; everything else just ceases to exist up there.”

Hermione suddenly felt choked as she heard him say that, and blinked furiously to clear her vision. 

“Granger?” his voice was so damned soft. 

Her lip trembled treacherously, but she bit it back. “Harry’s said the same thing once or twice,” she finally managed to croak. Then she turned to face him, face determined, and blurted, “Draco, I —”

“This weekend,” he interrupted, looking away abruptly. 

“What?”

“This weekend. I’m free this weekend. We should go this weekend.”

She closed her mouth so quickly her teeth clacked, but she nodded. The moment for voicing forgiveness and acceptance had apparently passed, and Malfoy’s jaw had set hard. “Ok.”

He was pulling back, the confines of his armour closing down like a portcullis around him, and she had missed her opportunity to sneak through the cracks. 

Malfoy turned from the view and paused to look back over his shoulder. “Six o’clock, here in the entrance hall?” 

Mutely, she nodded. He bowed his head and left, taking the stairs of the grand staircase at a steady pace, but two at a time, and he was gone in a few pounding heartbeats. 

Hermione looked back at the place where he’d been standing, and then out at the rain. Like waves on the shore, it draped itself in dense, cloying curtains over the mountains, sweeping across the relatively sheltered valley where the castle sat, shrouding the forest in mist and turning the mirror surface of the great lake to frosted silver. 

She felt then that she was at the heart of a hurricane. Outside, the universe was being swept clean, as changes to the wider wizarding world washed the filth and fear of the past away, and all she had to do was step out of the stillness around her and join it. 

This weekend. 

The first real step of her own new journey would begin this weekend; dinner in Hogsmeade with Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Hogsmeade is the next chapter. I pinky promise. 
> 
> What did you think of this one though?


	14. Hogsmeade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. The long awaited 'Date Night' in Hogsmeade. Of course, things never go entirely smoothly, but some things still need to be said before they can go any further...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in as many days!? I'm posting this as a Grawp-sized thank you to those of you who commented and kudos-ed after yesterday's chapter. You're giving the venomous tentacula quite the ego too. He would also like to remind you of the slow burn tag again. But... it's so close... *cackles anxiously*
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.

“Ginny!” Hermione shrilled from the foot of her bed, hair expanding at a rate faster than that Devil’s Snare from first year. 

Good Godric, it was a mess. Somehow, during an afternoon spent tackling a massive chunk of extremely complex Arithmancy homework - due on Monday - her hair had regressed to the thick, frizzy bush she’d sported in her early teens, before she’d caved in and used products to tame it into manageable curls. She’d never looked back, until that day. 

“What?” Ginny asked as she stepped out of the little bathroom that adjoined their small dormitory. “Oh Merlin, Hermione, your hair…” she exclaimed, hand clapping over her mouth with poorly disguised, though somewhat compassionate, amusement.

Taking a long, slow, deep inhale through her nose, Hermione turned to face Ginny, wearing just her underwear and a pair of loose, grey sweatpants. “Yes, I am well aware of that, Ginny… Listen, I would love to borrow those black heels you lent me for Percy’s birthday party… Don’t suppose you brought them back to school with you?”

“Of course I did,” she smiled, a glint in her eyes. “You know, I nearly gave them to you for your birthday. They’re too high for me to walk in really, and they do  _ spectacular  _ things to your legs, Hermione. Especially if you’re going to wear them with that red dress…”

_ That  _ red dress. 

“You are wearing it, right?”

_ That  _ red dress was the one she’d bought as a present to herself on a shopping trip with Ginny before school had started, and had yet to muster up the guts to wear. 

It wasn’t  _ that  _ special. It wasn’t particularly tight or revealing, but still… it was gorgeous. Cormac had once said that she looked good in red - well, he’d rather inarticulately blurted that she looked ‘fucking hot in that colour’ at the infamous Slug Club party - but when she’d mentioned her reservations about the dress to both Harry and Ginny that day, the couple had enthusiastically agreed that it was true; red did suit her, and not just because she was a Gryffindor. With that knowledge, and the encouragement of her friends, she’d found the nerve to try on the dress in Madam Malkin’s. 

Harry’s jaw had hit the floor when she emerged to show them, Ginny had wolf-whistled like she was at a quidditch match, so naturally Hermione had instantly bolted back into the changing rooms faster than a startled billiwig. Staring at herself in the mirror in the privacy of the cubicle, she had run her hands down over her hips, smoothing out the dark, berry red material and pausing to look at herself more closely than she had in a long time.

Until fifth year, she’d been pretty much straight up and down, with little hip or bust to speak of, and while she still wasn’t exactly the most curvaceous woman alive, she’d looked at herself with new eyes that day. The strain of the war was fading, the shadows under her eyes were almost gone, and the haunted, twitchy look she’d acquired had been replaced by something altogether more composed. In fact, as she’d stood there and stared, she’d realised that she looked remarkably like a photograph of her mother from when she’d been eighteen, though Hermione had her father’s wild hair. The thought had made her feel somehow more capable, like an adult who deserved a dress like that, and not a child playing dress-up, and she’d nodded. She emerged from the changing room having made her decision, and with the dress over one arm.

Now though as she crossed to the wardrobe, she shot Ginny an uncertain look. “It’s not going to be too much? I don’t want them to get the wrong idea…”  _ Who am I kidding. I  _ ** do  ** _ want to look amazing for them.  _

She felt guilty for wanting to make them both want her, but, she realised, it was true. She liked them - both of them - and for one evening she wanted to be the centre of their attention. To Harry and  Ron she was just…  _ Hermione _ , but to someone else she wanted to be… well, she wanted to be wanted as a woman. Was that so selfish? Perhaps it was. They already had each other, and despite what Theo had said, she couldn’t possibly envisage a way for the three of them to work anyway. It was practically ludicrous. 

Her face must have fallen a little because Ginny fixed her with a look. “Hermione,” she said flatly, folding her arms in a way that made her look eerily like a slender, young Molly Weasley for a second. “I’m not  gonna lie, I was  kinda shocked when you told me you were going out for dinner with Draco  _ Malfoy  _ —”

“— and Theo, Ginny. We’re all just going as friends…”  _ Are you really? _ a tiny, irritating little voice sneered in her head - which sounded uncomfortably like the ‘know-it-all Granger’ of her first and second years. 

“I know, I know,” Ginny said, swatting her hand at her friend. “But I’ll be damned if you aren’t going to show those two Slytherins how bloody gorgeous you are. Even Charlie tripped over his own feet when he saw you in that outfit at Percy’s birthday, and he’s not even interested in women! Let’s see if you can finally make Malfoy bite that old snake’s tongue of his off, mm?”

Hermione snorted, scrabbling mentally and trying not to think about Malfoy’s tongue… “That’ll only work if I can tame this mane first,” she grumbled ruefully, yanking fruitlessly on a frizzy section of curls near the front. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any Sleakeasy’s have you? I’m almost out…”

“For this lank mop?” Ginny asked, flicking her own, dead-straight hair back over one shoulder. “Hardly. All I’ve got is Wonderwaves to add some bloody life to it and you don’t need that!”

“Sometimes I’d love to have hair as straight and shiny as yours,” Hermione sighed. “I’ll have to make do with the Sleakeasy's I’ve got left and a bit of clever charmwork,” she said, drawing her wand and murmuring a spell as she wrapped a section of hair around it like. 

Over an hour later, with her hair miraculously holding itself in soft, loose ringlets, and with just enough makeup to highlight without hiding, and  _ That Red Dress _ on, she stood in front of the mirror in the girls’ dorm and swallowed nervously. “You’re sure it’s not too much? I feel like it’s too much,” she rambled, heart thudding. Thank Merlin and all the Founders for anti-perspiration charms. “It is kind of a Gryffindor red too. Oh Merlin, I didn’t think of that. You don’t think they’ll be insulted? That I’m trying to make a point?”

Ginny came up behind her and looped her arms around her slim waist, hugging her tightly as she plonked her chin down on Hermione’s shoulder. “You look incredible,” she said. “And you’re always going to be too much for any Slytherin to handle anyway,” she grinned. “Why not own it?” Drawing back, she slapped Hermione playfully on the backside. “Send up sparks if you get into trouble though,” she added and Hermione rolled her eyes. 

Walking through the common room felt like walking the gauntlet. What began as one pair of eyes turning curiously at her arrival, turned into every pair of eyes following her hurried and rather inelegant scuttle for the portrait.

“You look amazing,” Ginny hissed in her ear as she accompanied her through the common room like a bodyguard, glowering at anyone who gawped too long. “Don’t you forget that!”

“Thanks, Gin,” she smiled at the door, hugging her. 

“Go away,” Ginny laughed, bundling a cloak over her arm for later. “Go and have a good evening.”

Making her way through the castle, she prayed she wouldn't see too many people. Most of the students tended to stick to their own common rooms on Saturday evenings, but dinner was just starting to be served in the Great Hall. Professor McGonnagall passed her on the stairs and the older woman paused and smiled, inclining her head just a little with a fond smile. There was something oddly maternal about her silent approval, and Hermione’s eyes prickled. 

“Enjoy your evening, Miss Granger,” was all Minerva offered her as she swept up the staircase and away to another part of the castle. Eighth years were given far more freedom than any of the other students, and dinner in Hogsmeade was one such privilege. 

Anthony Goldstein emerged from a doorway atop the grand staircase, dressed in scruffy jeans and a loose shirt, heading back up to the Ravenclaw common room from the library by the look of the armful of books he nearly dropped on seeing her. “Bloody hell, Hermione,” he grinned. “You look amazing! Who's the lucky guy?”

She flushed and gripped the banister a little more tightly as she descended. “I’m just going out with friends,” she said quickly. “But thanks.”

He shook his head, still smiling. “Have fun,” he said, sounding a little winded, and as she continued on down towards the main entrance, she felt his gaze lingering on her back. The dress did have a very nice back… Emboldened by his reaction, she swallowed most of her nerves, and by the time she reached the entrance hall, she was feeling relatively confident. 

There, pacing back and forth while Draco leaned against the wall, she spotted Theo. He looked stunningly understated, in dark robes with a smart shirt, navy blue jumper that would complement his sapphire eyes just perfectly, and long, formal cloak to complete it. Like her, Draco had his cloak slung over his arm instead, and he wore a crisp white shirt again, with no jumper in sight. He looked equally like a model from an enticing Witch Weekly spread as he lounged there with his arms folded. Merlin and Morgana, they made a formidably attractive pair though, and it was hard not to let her recently found courage waver at the sight of them. 

At the sound of her heels - not terribly high, but definitely befitting the term ‘heels’ - Theo turned around and Draco looked up. She did not miss the way Theo’s jaw slackened, and Draco’s eyes widened fractionally. 

They crossed to the foot of the stairs as she descended, trying not to feel like it was the Yule Ball all over again, and when she joined them, Theo beamed at her. “Hermione,” he said, shaking his head slightly and making his brown curls bounce. “You look  _ devastatingly  _ beautiful,” he said, bowing melodramatically from the waist and picking up her hand to kiss her. Somehow despite the silliness of his compliment, she sensed he was being sincere underneath it all, and she blushed. As he released her, she felt her magic swell and tingle, the sensation of his lips on her skin lingering long after the contact had broken. She wondered if he’d felt it too. 

Draco lowered his head in a reverent bow. “He’s right,” was all he said through clenched teeth. “Shall we go?”

“Yes. You both look extremely handsome yourselves,” she added awkwardly, a beat too late for it to be truly smooth, but they didn’t seem to notice. 

“Yeah,” Theo said, turning to Draco and grinning roguishly. “We scrub up alright I suppose. You going to be alright in those heels?” he asked without a hint of mockery. 

Pursing her lips, she nodded. “I wouldn’t say no to an arm though,” she admitted as they hit the steps of the castle outside. It wasn’t too early in the year for a light October frost up in the Highlands, and her eye was caught by the delicate sparkle on the stone. She didn't fancy slipping over tonight. The countryside was dark beyond too, but they all knew the way to Hogsmeade like the back of their hands. Theo raised his elbow to her and she slid her fingers into the crook of his arm with a smile.

With Theo in the middle and Draco on their right, the three of them followed the long, winding path down from the castle towards the village in relative silence, but the moment they stepped out of the main school gates, Malfoy’s pace faltered.

Hermione looked over at him, and Theo stopped altogether, halting her as well since her right arm was still casually linked with his left. From the expression on Theo’s face, he knew exactly what was on Malfoy’s mind, but she hadn’t the foggiest.

“Malfoy?” she murmured. “Everything alright? Did you forget something back at the castle?”

“What? No. Of course not,” he half-snapped, looking more irritated with himself than with her. “I’m sorry, Granger,” he said immediately.

“ _ Hermione _ ,” she insisted gently. “You don’t have to keep calling me by my surname all the time. We’re not in first year any more...”

He blinked and then a wistful, amused smile twisted his lips. “This coming from the woman who literally just called me ‘Malfoy’?”

“Fair point,” she conceded, bowing her head a little and smiling. A few curls tumbled into her face and she swept them back, though they conveniently hid the fact that she was smiling. He’d referred to her so casually in passing as a ‘woman’ and not a ‘girl’, but it carried a weight of respect that warmed her right through. “First names only from now on?” she said.

He nodded curtly, brows still pinched. “Up to you. I won’t hold you to it though. You of all people have got the right to call me anything you like, my surname being amongst the most polite that I could imagine.”

She frowned, sensing that they were coming to the heart of the issue. “I thought we were past all that,” she said, and shot Theo a quick, questioning glance. 

In response, Malfoy just shook his head. “We can’t be —” he began but she opened her mouth in protest and made to cut him off.

Except... Theo closed his right hand around her fingers where they rested on his left forearm and squeezed briefly before releasing her. Silently, he’d begged her to let Draco talk, and she nodded once and bid him continue with a gesture. Draco obviously needed this. She’d been on the point of forgiving him the other day, but perhaps it had been a good thing he’d walked away. Now he could say his piece first. 

If he needed to get whatever it was off his chest, and she could bloody well stand there in the cold and let him. 

When Draco didn’t speak for a good long pause, Theo sighed. “We might as well address the erumpment in the room...” he winced. “Come on, Draco. Sp-Spit it out.”

“Fine,” he snarled, bristling like a white cat. “We can’t be past it until I say what I’ve not had — no, what I’ve not given myself — the chance to say to you all damned term.” He ran his fingers through his silver hair, dishevelling it slightly. Deliciously. “I’m  _ sorry _ , Hermione. I’m sorry for every last insult I’ve paid you since the moment I met you. I’m sorry for what I called you, for how I thought of you, how I behaved towards you and your friends and others like you, and... and for everything that followed. I’m sorry I did nothing, when… when…” he choked and looked away, throat working. 

“It’s ok, Draco,” she said, reaching for his arm and passing on the gesture that Theo had so recently offered her. 

His silver eyes bored down at the point where they touched. It must have been right over his Dark mark, she realised, though she couldn’t see it because of the long sleeves of the shirt. He had to be using a subtle warming charm to stave off the evening chill, and their magic buzzed at their touch. Hoarsely, he continued without meeting her eye, staring off unseeing at the mountains looming all around them. “I can’t name it all now or we’ll die of old age or frostbite, but I need you to know I’m sorry for all of it. You deserved so much better than the way I treated you.”

Stunned, and somewhat humbled, she blinked at him. 

That had to have been, without doubt, the longest set of continuous sentences he’d ever spoken to her. 

“I know,” she said at last. “I know you are, and I’d have to be wilfully unobservant to realise that.” She watched him closely; all tense lines and clenched jaw, scowling brows and dark, storm-grey eyes. “I wouldn’t be here tonight with either of you if I didn’t believe you. Nor would I have testified on your behalf, Draco. I believe you. And... honestly... I really enjoy spending time with you two.”

Theo’s lips lurched up into a lopsided grin and he grabbed Draco’s hand interlaced their fingers in a triumphant, ebullient gesture. Malfoy did not pull away, and he returned the smile, if somewhat more tentatively. There was a quiet fervour glowing in his silver eyes; one that hinted of the true depths of his feelings beneath that mirror surface. She could see what Theo had meant about Malfoy feeling things deeply, and keeping all that hidden behind layers of occlumency. He really was hard to read. 

Hermione let her gaze linger on the two boys’ linked hands and chuckled. “I told Theo this, but… you know…? I had no idea that you two were a couple for ages...?” she said to Malfoy. 

“We’re not hiding it,” Draco said quietly, in an almost perfect echo of Theo.

“I didn’t say I thought you were,” she said evenly. “Just that I was unsurprisingly oblivious...”

Theo began walking again, dragging Malfoy mutely along with him like a tug boat, the two still tethered together. “Brightest witch of her age,” Draco began sarcastically and she made a disgusted noise at the back of her throat.

“I hate that,” she scoffed.

“It’s kind of true though,” Theo said, unabashed. As he twitched his elbow beneath her touch, he added conspiratorially, “You are bloody brilliant.”

Draco nodded, but remained silent. 

“Maybe, maybe not,” she growled. “It’s still embarrassing to be singled out like that... as if I’ve never had help with anything...”

“Come on, Theo,” Draco said with an audible smirk. “Stop tormenting her. It might go to her head and then she’ll develop an ego. Then it genuinely will be unpleasant to be around her, and it’ll all be your fault.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione demanded as Draco steered Theo down a much narrower point of the path with a hand at the small of his back, and then ushered her in front of him with a gesture.

Theo turned jauntily, offering her his hand to step down, and quipped with a very pointed look at her, “It means that he’s trying to say he’s never found your company unpleasant at all, Hermione, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.”

“It is possible to go off a person, you know?” Draco said archly to Theo, who only snorted and blew a kiss at Draco over Hermione’s head.

“Not me. You’ve got me for l-l-life, love,” Theo said, and to her surprise, Draco’s face turned soft and almost soppy, ignoring the fluttering stammer.

Hermione raised her eyebrows but offered no comment. The moment had blown over, and although it was not forgotten, it had been laid to rest for now. Draco had said his piece, and she had accepted it. They’d also indirectly acknowledged the other thing standing between them; namely Draco’s previously secret admiration for her. And she couldn’t help feeling that they had come out the other side of it with smiles and an increased closeness. What came next was unknown, but instead of being anxious about it, she found excitement blossoming in her chest like a cloud of rambunctious pixies. 

They made their way along the wider track into the village without saying much more beyond the odd comment here and there. Hermione paused to vanish the mud from her heels, and Draco held the door of the new restaurant open for her. The sign that hung above bore the silhouette of a bat in flight in front of a full moon, with a branch of cherry blossoms beside it, painted in a classy, minimalist style. It set the tone of the place perfectly she discovered as they were shown to their table and given menus and wine lists. 

“Our treat,” Theo said quickly as she opened up the menu. “Ok?”

Inhaling, fighting the immense urge to protest, she pursed her lips. “Thank you,” she finally said, and he and Draco exchanged looks over the glass carafe of water that had just been set down by their waiter. “What?” she asked, frowning. 

“I honestly expected a fight about that,” Theo chuckled breathily. 

She rolled her eyes. “There’s a line between a nice gesture and blatant chauvinism, Theo, and even I can tell where that is. Oblivious though I may be about a lot of things.”

Draco’s only reaction was a private smirk behind his menu, and in under a minute, he laid it down on the table. 

“You’ve decided already?” she moaned. “Ugh… this all sounds so good… I don’t know where to start.”

“Pick a main,” Theo suggested without looking up. “I’m the same as you. I c-c-can never decide on anything. It drive Dr-Draco nuts.”

At the obvious stutter in his voice, she did look at him, wondering if he was suddenly nervous, and he looked up and met her eyes unflinchingly. Clearly, he’d sensed the sudden uptick in the intensity of her stare, and he flashed a shy grin at her. “You’ve just noticed something else too, hmm?”

Her cheeks darkened and she tried not to look flustered. “Maybe?” she hedged. When she saw that Draco looked lost, she swallowed. She really hadn’t meant to draw attention to it, especially not now.

Theo, to her relief, just set his menus down and poured them each a glass of water. “I believe what dear Hermione is tying herself in knots over, is the fact that she’s just noticed my  st -stammer…”

“Oh,” Draco said, huffing a quick snort. 

“Correct?” Theo asked, shunting her glass across the bare wood of the table. 

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Sorry. Not ‘just now’ though. I have noticed it before.”

He shrugged. “It used to be really appalling as a kid,” he said lightly. “I mean… so bad I couldn’t get much out as a k-kid, right Draco?”

Draco nodded silently. 

“But I learned to manage it eventually. Believe it or not, a lot of people never even notice it, so you c-can’t be that oblivious, Hermione.”

“Perhaps not,” she said flatly, mind still working away in the background. There was something attractive about the lyrical rhythm of it, especially paired with his warm baritone, and she hoped the flush in her cheeks could be chalked up to the brisk walk in the cold, and not the heat kindling in her core under their rather intense scrutiny. 

“You decided on your food yet?” Theo asked and she was grateful for the segue into another topic. She still couldn’t help picturing a tiny Theodore Nott with a riot of curly hair and big blue eyes, tripping over his words while an equally young Draco Malfoy just sat there in characteristic silence and waited for his friend to finish his sentences. The idea of a patient, loyal Malfoy was rather endearing, and she realised that she could see glimpses of the boy Daphne had described even now in the sharply handsome, quiet young man he’d become. 

Eventually, she settled on a fish main, while Theo opted for lamb, and Draco chose venison with a blackberry reduction. “Wine, Hermione?” Draco asked as he perused the list. 

“I… should probably leave it to you to choose that,” she said bashfully. “I like wine, but I don’t know much about it.”

Where past-Draco would have seized the opportunity to make a snide comment at her expense, drawing attention to her ignorance, now he simply nodded and returned his gaze to the list. While he was still deliberating, Theo interrupted and said, “Shall we get three glasses of champagne to start with? This is to celebrate Hermione’s birthday after all.”

Draco’s lips drew into a lopsided smile and he nodded. “Hermione?” 

“Lovely,” she said, deciding just to go along with it tonight. This was, after all, all about her… Why not indulge if they were offering? “Thank you.”

With their food and drinks ordered, Theo sat back and subtly cracked the tension from his neck. “Can’t say I’m l-loving still being at school while everyone else is g-g-gallivanting off all over the world, can you?” 

Hermione glanced at Draco, and then asked carefully, “What are the other Slytherins from our year doing?” 

Theo looked pointedly at Draco to encourage him to speak up at last. “Pansy is in America,” Malfoy offered. “Though she travels to Portugal a lot to visit Blaise.”

“They’re… together?” she ventured. “I’d heard a rumour they were engaged, but I didn’t know if there was any truth to it.”

Theo shrugged. “They're not engaged, as far as I know anyway. It’s more like a ‘friends with benefits thing’, I think. They’ve always been cl-close, but I’m not sure Blaise is really one to want to s-settle down, you know?”

“And what’s Pansy doing in America?”

Again under a little encouraging look from Theo, it was Draco who supplied, “She’s doing freelance work as some kind of consultant for MACUSA in New York.” 

When Hermione smiled at the idea of Pansy Parkinson bossing everyone in the American Magical Congress around with her harsh voice and clipped, upper-class British accent, Draco’s icy blond brows twitched curiously. She laughed aloud and, as their champagne arrived at the table, she said, “I can just see her there, that’s all.”

“They either love her or think she’s a total bitch,” Theo snorted. 

“Could be both,” Draco added dryly. 

All three of them shared a quick laugh and raised their flutes of sparkling wine. Theo looked at Hermione and then Draco. “Happy birthday, Hermione,” he said. “And to new beginnings, eh?” he said. 

“I’ll drink to that last one, especially,” Hermione said with feeling, and as she clinked the rim of her glass against Draco’s, she met his eye. Holding his gaze, she sipped but let her eyelids flutter closed as the truly incredible wine rolled in a sparkling wave over her tongue. “This is beautiful,” she murmured. 

Draco’s silent gaze said a lot in that moment, but she had turned her own away to concentrate on setting the glass back down on the table without knocking it over. She also didn’t want to focus on the way that Draco’s fingers held his wineglass so delicately by the stem. He looked like he’d been born holding a champagne flute, and she smiled to herself again at that. For all she knew, he had. 

“What about Potter then?” Theo asked as their starters arrived. “What’s everyone’s favourite Golden Boy up to these days?”

“He’s up to his eyeballs in auror training, apparently,” she groaned. 

Harry’s warning about unnerving activity in France drifted through her memory at that, reminding her that it wasn’t like quidditch training. Harry was still in the very serious business of fighting Dark Magic while she was sat here at a table of fine food and wine. The champagne bubbles fizzed unsettlingly in her stomach at that, but she did her best to brush it aside.

“He’s… enjoying it though, I think,” she said. “It suits him. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Draco parroted with a smirk. When Hermione raised her eyebrows at him, he laughed softly and gestured with his fork a little as he went on. Despite being left handed, he didn't switch his cutlery around to accommodate, remaining the very pinnacle of good breeding and manners. As if she would have minded, but he didn’t appear hampered in the slightest by it. “Come on, what else was Potter going to do when he left here? Take up knitting? Rescue kneazles?”

“True.”

“Are he and the Weasley girl still together?” Draco asked. 

“Yeah, he’s still dating Ginny,” she said, unaware that he’d known that about them. “They’re planning to redecorate his godfather’s place over Christmas.”

“Sounds like they’re getting serious then,” he said and she nodded. 

“Must make things awkward with you and her brother…?” Theo asked carefully. Everyone knew that she and Ron had dated briefly during the war, and of course, Rita Skeeter had picked up on their break-up as well, splashing it across the Prophet with some gaudy headline or other about ‘trouble in paradise’. 

Taking her time to enjoy a modest mouthful of her starter, she twitched her shoulder and took a sip of champagne. Draco was suddenly very focused on his beetroot carpaccio for some reason. “Yes and no. Ron and I work better as friends though, I think,” she said, deliberately ignoring the fact that Ron was still prone to pining and bouts of self-indulgent melancholy if he was around her for too long. “Like you and Pansy…?” she asked Draco, hoping to deflect. 

Draco nodded. “We owl fairly regularly, but then again, we were much younger when we dated, so there’s no tension anymore.”

“What’s Weasley doing with himself now that he’s not playing second fiddle to your heroics anyway?” Theo asked. 

She frowned defensively at Theo’s implications. “He’s supporting his brother and running Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley with him, but he intends to interview at the next round of auror intakes…”

They both seemed surprised at that, but left it be without offering comment. She could see that Draco was probably dying to make a snide remark, but she was grateful that he had the self-control to keep it to himself that night. Insulting her friends would win him no favours. 

Conversation flowed around them while they ate, covering ‘safe’ topics like school and friends’ current activities, until Theo noticed that Hermione had fallen quiet and was sitting with a slightly glassy-eyed expression on her face. 

He leaned in a little, looking uncharacteristically pale, and murmured, “You alright?”

Nodding, she blinked rapidly and offered him an open smile. “I was just thinking how lovely this is,” she said, and the two boys both exhaled subtly in obvious relief. “I can’t remember the last time I did something like this either.”

“You deserved an evening off, Hermione,” Draco said quietly as he finished the remnants of his glass of red wine. The contrast of the burgundy liquid against the white of his shirt and skin was remarkably attractive too, and she tried not to look at the curve of his lips as he drank, nor the way his pale throat worked as he swallowed. He and Theo had shared a bottle of red between them while she’d ordered a large glass of white to go with the fish. At the sound of her given name on his lips, she turned her gaze to him and he purred, “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, aware of how coy she sounded and somehow not quite caring. “It’s just nice to hear you say my name like that.”

To her surprise, Draco’s white cheeks flushed. “I can go back to ‘Granger’ if you’d prefer,” he muttered dryly into his empty wineglass. 

“No,” she laughed, reaching across the table for his other hand where it rested. Squeezing his fingers, she was surprised at how warm his skin was. For some reason she still expected his pale skin to be cold as marble. Releasing him a moment later, she chuckled. “‘Hermione’ is just fine.”

With the bill paid by Draco, they finished off their coffees and eventually, when Hermione began to yawn again, they left. She gasped as she stepped out into the chilly autumn, and Draco drew his wand and asked, “May I?”

“Depends,” she said archly. 

A lopsided smirk twisted his lips and he murmured a warming charm over the three of them. It was just subtle enough to take the nip out of the air, but not cloying enough to make them perspire as they began the walk back up to the castle. 

Draco offered her his arm this time, and when she took it shyly, Theo scooped up her other hand and draped it over his arm, flanking her on the other side and tossing a roguish grin down at her as he did so. 

“ M’lady ,” he chirped and she felt her cheeks ache with the force of her smile. It felt so good to be this free, this  _ carefree _ . And with these two in particular as well… It was no wonder that half the Gryffindors had started looking at her like she’d been  Imperiused at times. If only everyone could see this side of Draco and Theo all the time, instead of all the understandable baggage that came with their reputation and chequered past. 

It seemed no time at all before they were stepping into the shadow of the enormous castle, despite her heels and the slow, ambling pace they all set without a word between them. They could have apparated to the edge of the Hogwarts’ wards, but no one brought it up, and they all enjoyed the chance to stretch their legs and let their food go down gradually. 

Disentangling herself from their arms, Hermione paused in the entrance hall. She’d been expecting Theo and Draco to split from her here, since the entrance to the Slytherin Dungeons was right there and her own dormitories were a good few floors above, but Theo surprised her by saying they’d walk her back to Gryffindor Tower.

“You really don’t have to,” she said, but caught the tense look on Draco’s face and relented immediately. “But if you’d like to, I’m not going to complain.”

Draco’s lips twitched and he offered her his arm again with a mere tilt of his elbow as they began to climb the stairs.

She took it, sliding her fingers into the crook of his arm again and trying not to hang onto him with a death grip as they ascended the stairs. The muscles of his arm were like corded steel and, now that they were inside and she wasn’t concentrating on not stumbling in her heels on the uneven gravel, she suddenly became very aware of just how fit and lean and strong he was. His apparent slenderness, enhanced by the withering stress he’d suffered during the last two years, belied that lithe seeker strength, and the realisation made her core heat and sparked a tingling between her thighs that she absolutely did not want to dwell on in that moment.

They didn’t speak much as they went, and when they halted outside an extremely suspicious looking Fat Lady, who glared openly at the two Slytherins, Hermione let go of Draco and turned to face them.

“Thank you so much for tonight,” she said, feeling a little choked and hearing her voice quiver damnably. “It’s not that I didn’t have a good time on my birthday, but... it felt a bit like something that everyone else wanted to do for me, rather than something that... I wanted… for myself… You know?  _ Godric _ , I sound like such a brat...”

They shook their heads as one. “You’re not a brat for wanting something for yourself for once, Hermione,” Theo murmured.

“Well... yeah,” she said awkwardly, bobbing slightly on the balls of her feet as she contemplated doing what she really wanted to do. “I just wanted to thank you for it all the same. I had a wonderful time,” she chirped, and then impulsively reached up and closed her arms around Theo’s neck in a hug.

He laughed and immediately hugged her back, squeezing affectionately before releasing her with another chuckle. “Our pleasure, Granger,” he said and she tossed him a final smile before turning to Malfoy.

He looked so tense she thought he might actually be sick any moment, or at least shatter into a thousand shards, but before either of them could wimp out, she quirked an eyebrow at him, asking his silent permission to hug him too. His lips tugged ruefully at one corner and his brows rose expressively. She had her permission - now all she needed was her Gryffindor courage.

Stepping in, she embraced him too, and it was like hugging a statue.

Malfoy’s lean torso remained rigid beneath her touch for a good three seconds before he slowly - so very slowly - raised his arms and returned the gesture. He moved as if the moment were made of spun glass, ready to fracture beneath his touch, but he allowed himself to put one hand on the small of her back, and the other to cradle the back of her head, fingers mindful of disturbing her precarious waves.

He smelled like petrichor and the fresh, autumnal night outside, with the sharp, subtle undertone of his cologne behind the scents of the restaurant, and she almost lingered beyond the bounds of propriety just to inhale it once more. His own nose, she noted just before she stepped back out of his tentative embrace, had been nestled amid the curls atop her head, and as she looked up at him, his eyes shifted and glimmered in the soft light of the hallway like flowing mercury. His pupils were huge and dark, pushing the halo of his silver irises out almost to the limit. 

“Night,” she said breathily and they nodded at her.

“Goodnight, Hermione,” Draco rasped before he and Theo linked hands and walked off down the corridor together. 

She watched them go, watched Theo tug Draco close to his side as they walked and nuzzle the shorter blond hair at he side of his head before they trotted down the stairs and out of sight. 

Hermione uttered the password in a daze and the Fat Lady huffily opened the door for her to step, light and giddy, into the common room. 

With the scent and feel of both Theo and Draco still lingering in her thrumming senses, she lay back in bed that night with the curtains drawn and the strongest silencing charms she could conjure, and gave in to the roaring want inside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? How do you feel about it? Was it what you'd hoped for? 
> 
> *hides nervously behind the tentacula*


	15. One step forward, two steps back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione's growing friendship with Theo and Draco takes an unexpected turn, but an invitation from Daphne might help in the long run...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your enthusiasm and patience with this story! 
> 
> Things have been turbulent here, but I'm back now. In this one we get to see how things change after The Hogsmeade Dinner (thank you so much for all your beautiful comments on that, by the way!). I hope you enjoy this one as much the previous ones, and I promise you I'm brewing a goodly chapter for the impending Halloween Feast...

As the fiery colours of October died down like embers, the fierce Scottish weather ripped the leaves from the trees one by one to scatter them across the grounds like discarded fairy wings, and as a rather bleak November loomed on the horizon, the relatively new trio of ‘Hermione, Theo, and Draco’, became something of a regular fixture around the castle. 

They teamed up more often than not for group projects in class, and even began to do their homework together in the library and prefects’ common room, Draco joining them there ‘on invitation’. Whatever they had between them was tentative, uncertain, fragile, and none of them dared address it directly, but after their dinner in Hogsmeade, everything had changed. And undoubtedly for the better. 

Draco and Theo were  _ inseparable _ , their bond evidently running soul-deep, and as the term progressed, they became slightly more open in their affections towards one another in public. Theo held Draco’s hand in the corridors between classes, and even kissed him - with breathtaking passion - as they parted at the end of Potions one afternoon; Draco heading back to change for another quidditch practice, and Theo to the library. 

Hermione had blushed and walked directly up to the library alone, with her core burning, her cheeks hot— not with embarrassment, but sheer, undiluted lust. Her underwear was undeniably ruined. Shame followed hot on its heels when she realised that she wanted Theo to kiss her like that — had fantasised and touched herself to that exact idea — and for Draco to gaze at her like that, to grab the back of her hair and tug, to bite at her lower lip until it throbbed, to… A wave of disgust swept through her, leaving her appalled by the rawness of her envy. They were not hers, and there was no way that Theo’s casually offered “Whatever you want, with or from either of us - or both - is… is ok” could have been meant like…  _ that _ … could it? 

Her Arithmancy homework did not get finished that free period. 

It didn’t help that she felt more comfortable around the pair of them than she did around most of her eighth year contemporaries. Draco laughed more frequently now, though he was still stiff and sullen, defensive and sarcastic in class; Theo stammered a little more openly around her, as if he’d decided that he no longer had to work so hard to hide it; and Hermione felt their kindling closeness as a warming in her chest that she’d not felt since the end of first year with Harry and Ron. There was an oddly cyclical quality to it all, like she’d come full circle with the rise and fall of Voldemort from first to seventh year, and now in her eighth, new beginnings kindled with this new friendship. 

In the library one rainy afternoon during a free period in the week leading up to the Halloween feast, Theo pushed abruptly back from the table, practically ripping his reading glasses off his face, and growled wordlessly in soft frustration. “Fuck,” he groaned slowly a moment later. 

Draco looked up from his translation and cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

“I forgot I’ve got to t-tutor those little third year shits again tonight after supper.”

Draco’s fleeting grin was feral. “Don’t let Slughorn hear you call them that,” he snorted, sliding a long finger into the textbook and letting it close casually in his lap as he tipped back on the chair legs. 

Theo rolled his eyes and Hermione kept quiet, though she did raise her eyes from her own work to observe the exchange. “They are little shits though,” Theo whined, running his fingers through his wavy hair and sending it into riotous disarray. “They don’t want to be there, but they know they have to be or they’ll fail their O.W.L’s eventually. All they do is complain and whinge and talk back at me.”

“They won’t take their O.W.L.’s for another two years,” Hermione whispered in the hush of the library. “Can’t you cut them a bit of slack?”

“And they won’t take them at all if they don’t learn how to count or do substitutions!” Theo groused.

He stood and stretched, crossing to the window and staring out at the rain-lashed grounds beyond. He ran his hands through his curls again and scrunched his forelock for a minute, clearly enjoying the tug before letting his hands fall back to his sides. 

She shot Draco a quizzical look. He just shook his head with a ‘don’t ask’ expression, and she inclined her own head in acceptance. Whatever was bothering Theo was clearly not something she needed to share in. 

“Can I help?” she ventured tentatively. “With the tutoring, I mean?”

“Hermione,” Theo said flatly, turning from the window to face her without coming back to the table. With his hip rested against the stonework and his arms folded across his chest, he looked like a vision. “You’ve got  _ way  _ enough on your plate already.”

“I’ve got no plans for tonight,” she said carefully. “I can’t make it a regular thing, but if you need an extra set of eyes to help go over their work or someone to explain something… I’m happy to help out this once.”

Theo chewed his lower lip and scowled. 

Eventually, after watching him run his fingertips back and forth along the windowsill in distracted thought, Draco tutted and pushed back from the table to stalk over to him. He moved like liquid; hips loose, spine lithe and strong, gaze focused and head held at a distinctly patrician angle. Hermione felt herself flush again and nearly looked away. These boys were going to be the death of her and she wondered fleetingly what the female equivalent of ‘blue balls’ was. 

Draco joined put his hand on Theo’s lower back and nuzzled his boyfriend’s cheek with the tip of his sharp nose for a moment. Hermione watched with an unexpectedly painful twinge in her gut as Draco began to kiss him enticingly just below his ear, mouthing and raking his teeth over his pulse before pulling back and looking intently at him. 

She’d watched them become increasingly more open with their displays in her company of late, but this was a new level of closeness altogether, and she felt her core tighten at the sight of Draco’s obvious and unabashed adoration. 

Theo turned doleful eyes on him and then managed a smile. Taking a huge breath, he looked over at Hermione and found her watching them. 

Offering her a wonky, half-hearted smile, he exhaled and turned back to Draco, pressing a chastely affectionate kiss to Draco’s forehead. “Thanks, love,” he muttered, fingertips resting against Draco’s narrow hips. “I’m being a dick, I know. They’re alright really.”

Draco raked his hands through Theo’s hair once or twice, settling it back into its usual arrangement of springy, russet waves, and then made his way back to the table, settling down with his books again as if he’d never risen in the first place. Hermione, who had been torn between staring openly at their frankly adorable affection for one another and looking away to give them some privacy, felt her cheeks flush anew as she struggled to concentrate again. 

Theo sighed and mumbled from his spot by the window, “It’s in the old Charms classroom. We start at se-seven, if you’re around, but don’t feel like you need to c-come along, ok?”

She nodded, gracing him with a quick glance and a smile. “I’ll be there,” she said, barely pausing in her fast-paced scribbling. 

“How do you write with those things?” Theo asked as he crossed back to the table again and braced his weight on his palms to stare quizzically at the ballpoint in her hand. His question held no trace of pureblood disdain or sneer, only open curiosity. 

She shrugged and held it out for him to inspect. “I grew up with them. They don’t spatter the way quills do - at least for me - and you don’t need to cart ink around… I’m sure people with the handwriting of a prince don’t have to worry about all that though, do they Theo?” she asked with a playful glitter in her eyes, remembering his amazing cursive writing on her birthday card. 

He flashed her a heart-stopping, dimpled grin, meeting her gaze through his long lashes. “Some of us had calligraphy lessons as a kid —” he said, and shot Draco a meaningful look as he added, “— and some of us pointedly ignored them.”

Draco looked sidelong at him through his ice-white lashes and she felt her stomach tighten at the intensity of it. “Some of us are left-handed,  _ Theodore _ ,” he drawled dangerously, setting down his quill and brandishing the heel of his palm at him to reveal blotches of dark ink there. “Some of us have to work very hard not to smudge everything because quill pens take a fucking age to dry.” He shot Hermione a look and then held out his hand. “Maybe I should try your muggle pen, Hermione. Then we’ll see who has the nicer handwriting… me or Theo.”

Silently she handed it over to him and watched, fascinated, as he wrote a sentence on a spare scrap of parchment that he’d been ripping into ribbons to mark places in the textbook. 

_ ‘My name is Draco Malfoy and I am not afraid of muggle technology’ _ it read, and Hermione nearly had a coronary when she saw not only the unbelievably beautiful script - how does anyone write that beautifully with a flipping ballpoint pen!? - but the words themselves. She barked a loud laugh that earned her a tart ‘shush’ from someone a few tables over, and she covered her mouth with her hand. 

“You can write neatly,” she whispered and Draco flicked both eyebrows up in a stinglessly sarcastic ‘fancy that’ gesture. 

Not one to be outdone, Theo rolled his eyes dramatically and snatched the biro right out of Draco’s grip. He drew his lips up into a grimace, rolling it around in his fingers for a moment. “The balance is so weird,” he said. 

“It’s a pen, not a fencing rapier, you pillock,” Draco snickered. 

Undeterred, Theo brandished it at him, point first. “En garde!” he whispered.

Draco rolled his silver eyes at his boyfriend’s dorkish behaviour. “Tu crois vraiment pouvoir me battre?” he said in an undertone and Hermione gasped. 

“You speak French?” she blurted. “Of course you do.”

“Mais bien évidemment!” he drawled, levelling her with another deadly-beautiful look. 

“Oh my god,” she muttered, cheeks hot, turning away on the off-chance that he might just miss the sheer and obvious lust rolling through her in almost overwhelming waves. How very dare he be effortlessly bilingual as well as devastatingly attractive?

Of course, even in the unlikely case that he had been unaware of it, Draco did not now miss how attractive it was to her that he was fluently bilingual, and it transpired that Theo also spoke some French, though not as smoothly, and the two proceeded to converse solely in French for the rest of the afternoon. 

Hermione had to leave early and change her underwear before dinner, though there was no way she was ever going to let either of them find that out. 

Ever. 

At just after seven that evening, she found herself outside the old, disused Charms classroom on the sixth floor. 

The door was open ajar, and she paused outside, watching as Theo went over a fundamental aspect of Arithmancy, strolling between the desks of younger Slytherins. She could suddenly envisage an older venison of him as a beloved but stern Arithmancy professor here at Hogwarts, dressed in a tweed jacket and chalk-dusted robes. She had to screw her eyes up and wait outside a little longer to rid herself of the reaction that such an image produced. She wasn’t all that successful. “Dammit,” she hissed.

There were only five students in there, but she could see what he meant about them not wanting to be there, slumped over their desks or leaning on their hands despite his charismatic teaching style. She couldn’t blame them though - extra study hours were not many people’s idea of fun - and no one  _ enjoyed  _ being in a remedial class. 

To her surprise, she spotted Draco sitting on a desk in the corner at the front, palms beside his thighs, swinging his legs idly, watching Theo pace. With a shy smile to herself, she slipped inside, and Draco turned his head sharply to look at her, evidently taken aback by the fact that she’d actually shown up. 

Theo turned too — mid explanation — and grinned at her. “Ma chérie!” he exclaimed melodramatically and she raised her eyebrows at him. 

“Keep that up, Nott, and I’ll leave immediately,” she said with a playfully dangerous edge to her voice. He clearly knew perfectly well what the sound of all that French had done to her earlier, and he grinned. 

He did bow in theatrical deference, however, sweeping his cloak to one side in the chilly, slightly dusty air of the classroom, and when he straightened, he said without malice, “Right, you flock of esteemed little brats, look who’s come to help out.”

The five students were gawping at her but she smiled. “Sounds like you’ve got it covered for now,  _ professor _ . I’ll just park myself over here with Draco and you can call on me as you need.”

“As I need, huh?” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Good Godric, was he trying to kill her today?

She rolled her eyes and plonked herself down on the desk beside Draco. “Hi,” she smiled and he nodded. 

“Granger,” he murmured in greeting. “You really didn’t have to come along you know?”

“I know. I wanted to watch Theo teach,” she admitted. “See how good he really is…”

“He’s good,” Draco said earnestly, returning his gaze to Theo. 

She watched him finishing off the recap and nodded. “I can see. I’m sure I’m not really needed at all…”

But once the tiny class started going over a problem sheet - apparently of Theo’s own devising - it turned out that she could be helpful after all. After only a few minutes, she spotted a girl at the back looking befuddled and a touch lost, and silently slid off the desk to cross to her. “Ok?” she asked quietly, not wanting to draw the attention of the rest of them, who were more or less doing alright for the time being. 

“Mmm…” the girl grimaced. “Not really. I know that ‘a’ is three, but I don’t see how to work out what ‘x’ is to solve it…”

“Have you simplified it first?” she asked, seeing that she hadn’t, and the girl’s eyes darted back to the sheet. 

“No…” she admitted. 

“Ok, let’s simplify it first, and then we can have a crack at the first bit.” 

Ten minutes later, the girl was steaming through the rest of the problems and Hermione drew back, pleased to have laid it out for her in a way she understood. 

When she looked up, she found Theo staring at her with an odd expression on his face. 

Draco, by contrast, was looking anywhere but at her, jaw clenched, a tendon standing out starkly. Was he angry that she’d taken over from Theo like that? She hadn’t wanted to show him up by choosing to show her a different way of doing the same thing, but this was a Slytherin study group and these were Slytherin ‘students’. An interfering Gryffindor could be unwelcome to say the least. 

Heat blasted under her skin and she straightened up, touching the back of the girl’s chair and praising her quietly once more before she walked away, cheeks aflame. Embarrassed, she took off her jumper to try and cool down, and slung it over the back of a nearby empty seat. “Everything ok?” she asked Theo in a tight whisper after she’d rearranged her mass of curls, brushing half of her mane back out of her face.

“Oh… Er, yeah…” he said, that brilliant smile of his faltering just a tiny bit. “Perfect. Fine.” He cleared his throat and turned away. 

Feeling like she’d overstepped, Hermione hung back from the two of them, not really wanting to leave but feeling increasingly awkward about staying. 

Luckily, the session was only half an hour, and the kids were relieved to pack up and file out, thanking the older trio for their help. The young girl paused and shyly looked up at Hermione. “Thank you,” she said, her huge dark eyes wide and almost puppy-like. “I think I get it now.”

“You nailed it. Don’t forget to practise though,” Hermione advised, “And if you get stuck, go back to the example we did together, and break it down bit by bit.”

She nodded, and scuttled after her friend who lingered in the doorway waiting for her. “Thank you, Miss Granger.”

“It’s just Hermione,” she chuckled warmly and the girl nodded. 

“I think they’re quite smitten with you,” Theo purred from where he was now leaning against the old, grimy blackboard. “I hope none of them defects to Gryffindor because of it.” 

She wanted to tell him to get up off the board before it left dusty stains all down his cloak, but she distinctly recalled being told off by Ron and Harry for bossing them about in a similar fashion while they were all living in the tent and hunting horcruxes. She had no desire to elicit that feeling in Theo just then. She already felt on the back foot as it was.

“You’re better at teaching them than you let on,” she offered, crossing to the doorway now that there was no reason to linger. “Anyway, look, I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow in Ancient Runes.” 

And with that, she left. 

She was halfway up to Gryffindor Tower when she shivered and remembered that she’d left her jumper behind. “Oh bugger,” she grumbled, turning round on the stairs and trotting back down again, rubbing her arms to keep the goosebumps from her skin.

Nearly Headless Nick floated through a wall just beneath her on the stairs and accosted her politely, so she chatted with him just long enough not to be rude. 

In a rare moment of self-awareness, Nick smiled at her. “I shan’t keep you any longer, my dear. Thank you for humouring an old ghost. Goodnight.”

She smiled fondly at him, and hurried through the castle again. 

Not thinking for a moment that anyone would be in the room still, she shoved the door open and was three paces in before she registered who was on the other side of the room, and in what state…

Draco was still seated on the desk, but with his knees parted, flies open to reveal the tent in his boxer-briefs, with Theo standing between his legs, kissing him senseless. One of Theo’s hands was tangled in Draco's white hair, tugging his head back at an almost painful angle to expose his kiss-ravaged throat, the other at Draco’s crotch palming his erection through the fabric, and the pair were so caught up in the moment that neither noticed her arrival. Draco’s pale neck was peppered with angry, possessive, red marks, and his cheeks were flushed and blotchy. He looked thoroughly wrecked already, but as she ground to a halt in the classroom, he did look up.

“Let me blow you,” Theo snarled, still oblivious to her presence, fingers fumbling at Draco’s waistband.

Hermione cursed softly, clapping her hand over her mouth and turning away.

“Come to join in, Granger,” Draco sneered suddenly, his voice nastily, acerbically sharp. Theo made an inarticulate noise of surprise and jerked back from Draco. 

“No!” she yelped, waving her hands in front of her. “I came back for my jumper oh my god. What is it with you two and public spaces! Anyone could have walked in here!”

“Literally no one comes to this part of castle, Hermione,” Theo growled, sounding winded. “And it’s not like we’re  _ particularly  _ indecent this time.”

“I just  _ did  _ walk in! And the third years only just left!” she shrilled. “And you just offered to blow him!” she added. 

Theo’s posture turned tight and defensive at that, and Draco was scowling, cheeks red. She tried not to glance at the obvious tent in Draco’s trousers as he fumbled to do them up again. 

“Leaving,” Hermione said. “Right now. You can bring my jumper to Ancient Runes tomorrow.”

And with that, she fled. 

Holy shitting fuck, how was she ever supposed to get that image out of her mind? Theo’s assertive posture, Draco’s indolent arousal, their flushed faces… but their defensiveness was new this time. They knew she’d seen them before, but when faced with her presence in the moment, they’d both snarled at her. Trying to pretend it was merely a natural reaction to being surprised, and not directed at her, she spent the rest of the evening in the Gryffindor common room, playing chess with Ginny. She lost every game and retired early. 

Ancient Runes the next day was unexpectedly uncomfortable. Draco arrived first, followed by Hermione, and last of all by Theo, which meant she ended up sandwiched between the two of them, hating every moment of it. 

“I cannot believe you two,” she hissed at Draco through gritted teeth while they waited for Professor Vector to arrive. “Seriously.”

“You do have a penchant for discovering us, Granger,” Draco drawled. “One might almost think you wanted to keep finding us in the middle of it.”

“Stop making this about me!” she snarled back, and he did blink at that. She was certainly not ready to admit she’d come three times in a row the previous night just thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t barged in on them. Or if she’d called Draco’s bluff and had joined in. 

At her comment, Draco looked away. “ It won’t happen again.”

“Like I believe that!” she scoffed, a fraction too loudly. 

Theo slid in beside her at that point, and she squirmed. “Believe what?”

“That you two are ever going to cease your… extra-curricular activities around the castle,” she snapped at him. “I’m scarred for life now. Twice!” That wasn’t true at all, of course, and Theo raised an eyebrow at her. They had been every bit as glorious together the second time as the first, except she had blundered into the middle of it that time. “Promise me you won’t ever do it again. Ever!” 

Theo sighed. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve learned our lesson, Hermione.” He paused for effect, and then shot her a wicked look. “About privacy charms at the very least.”

“Well, thank all the founders for small mercies,” she grumbled, ready to let it go. “And please don’t ever bring it up again.”

“Happily,” Draco muttered from beside her, his face rather unexpectedly — and attractively — crimson. Theo just snickered and opened his textbook and unfurled a new roll of parchment. 

She was spared any more embarrassment by Professor Vector’s arrival, and spent the rest of the class focused entirely on the theorem at hand. 

It would probably take her days to be able to look either of them in the face, let alone make direct eye contact, but the two Slytherins didn’t really give her much chance. Draco's quidditch schedule picked up as October slid inexorably on in a series of blustery storms towards November, and Theo seemed somehow more subdued without him. 

Leaving Charms on Friday afternoon, Hermione turned at the sound of a young woman’s voice calling her name. Daphne came trotting along the corridor, long blonde hair swaying like an aura around her, a beautiful smile on her face. One of the seventh years walked into the door frame behind her with a soft ‘oof’ after staring open-mouthed at her for too long. 

“Hermione!” she called again, practically dancing over to her. 

“Daphne?” Hermione asked, bringing her books up in front of her chest and hugging them close like some kind of shield. It was hard not to feel self-conscious about her looks in front of someone as breathtakingly beautiful as Daphne Greengrass. 

“Draco said you had potions before lunch. I’m glad I caught you. I was… I was wondering if… if maybe you still wanted to go into Hogsmeade before the Halloween Feast? I could probably do with a dress…” she said bashfully, tucking her hair behind her ear to reveal small pearl earrings. “I mean, I probably don’t really, but I’d still like to look for one…”

Shopping wasn’t exactly the way she’d planned on spending the weekend, but in all fairness she had finished most of her homework, and had submitted her suggestions for the remainder of the term’s Muggle Studies seminars. 

While she was deliberating, Daphne clearly mistook her silence for reluctance, and took half a step back. “But don’t worry about it if you’ve got other things you need to —”

“— I’d love to,” Hermione said quickly. “I haven’t got a dress that’s really suitable, and I’d like to get a new one if I can find one. I’d love your eye, because honestly I’m not exactly all that fashion conscious…” She had planned on wearing the red one again, but giving it an outing so soon after its first one had felt a bit pathetic. 

Daphne’s face lit up at her answer, and she beamed. “Perfect. Shall we meet at the entrance hall on Saturday at ten? Unless you’d like to wait for the carriages?”

“Let’s see what the weather’s doing,” Hermione suggested just as the howling gale outside hurled a fresh squall at the castle windows. 

With a shared giggle, Daphne agreed. “Are you going straight to lunch now?” she asked.

Nodding, Hermione fell into step beside her, and risked a glance at Draco and Theo who were only just leaving the Charms classroom, fingers interlaced as usual. Their expressions were complicated and unreadable as they regarded the interaction between Hermione and Daphne, but she thought she spotted something akin to fondness in Draco’s usually icy eyes. She offered him a passing smile which, to her surprise, was returned, warm and heartfelt. 

The gesture left her glowing all afternoon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More things afoot, I promise!


	16. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione goes shopping for a new dress with Daphne, and then we finally get that Halloween feast... Things move on apace, only to leave our characters reeling...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your ongoing enthusiasm and comments. It's really giving me life in a frankly rather miserable and turbulent time. I now probably won't be responding individually to comments as, astonishingly, there are so many!! I do read every single one of them, however, and your feedback nurtures the venomous tentacula (who has grown far too big for his boots/pot already, but don't let that stop you!). 
> 
> So. This one is long. Like... 8000 words long. I was going to divide it up, but I was too anxious about what you'd have to say about that, and about waiting even longer, HOWEVER, it does end on a huge cliffhanger. 
> 
> The next chapter is written, however, and just needs an edit, and I'm hoping to have it up tomorrow for you. 
> 
> Trust me, ok? Just... trust me. Please.

Thunder rattled the castle casements, and torrents of rainwater poured down the battlements when Daphne joined Hermione in the entrance hall for the weekend trip to Hogsmeade. 

“Carriages?” Daphne laughed, her musical voice barely audible over the storm. 

As always, she looked spectacular, even in a relatively casual outfit. That day, she wore thick, dark green tights, tall, brown boots rather like Muggle riding boots, and a short tweed skirt that showed off a lot of those dark green tights. A soft, Slytherin green cable-knit jumper completed her rather well-put-together outfit. Hermione wore humble jeans and a mauve hoodie, and felt somewhat scruffier in contrast, but Daphne didn’t bat an eyelid at her outfit as she joined her, which heartened her somewhat. 

“Carriages,” Hermione agreed, adding a soft, “Bloody hell,” as another deafening thunderclap threatened to rend the sky and the castle and the land for several miles around them into tiny, smoking pieces. 

A quick _impervio_ kept the rain from turning them to drowned pygmy puffs in the scant few metres between the entrance and the nearest carriage, but they still scuttled over the gravel with shoulders hunched against the blasting wind. Hermione’s eyes studiously slid away from the thestrals that many more of the current student body could now see than before May that year. 

If Hermione had been worried about how on earth she was going to fill a day in Hogsmeade with Daphne Greengrass, she needn’t have been. Their first hour and a half in the village was spent trying on Halloween gowns in Gladrags, ranging from the somewhat daring to the outright ridiculous. 

Hermione’s ‘favourite’ on Daphne had been one in a voluminous, iridescent pink fabric that made even the willowy Daphne look like a revolting, rainbow-sheen blancmange. The two hadn’t been able to stand up straight or see through their tears of laughter for a good five minutes at least when Daphne swept the changing room’s curtain aside and proceeded to strut down the main aisle of the shop floor with the blank face of a runway model before crumbling into hysterics at the far end. 

“I’m sorry,” Daphne said, plumping the skirts up for extra effect, “But this is vile.” 

“It really is,” Hermione said, wiping mascara from beneath her eye. “Wow. Ok, let’s… uh… set that one aside for now?” 

Daphne nodded and as she turned, her eyes lit up. “Oh, now we’re talking…” she said in a dangerously silky voice, and Hermione turned to see what she’d found. 

“No.” 

“Ohh yes.” 

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not wearing that. I’ll look like a picnic blanket!” 

“I wore this,” Daphne said, plucking at a fold of iridescent pink fabric. “You’re trying that on. Unless you’re too chicken…” 

Damned Slytherins. There was no way a Gryffindor could refuse that kind of prod, and they both knew it. 

‘That’, incidentally, was a huge, tartan monstrosity in thick, itchy wool. Hermione was not one to be outdone, and certainly not by a Slytherin, so she fixed Daphne with a playfully deadly look, grabbed the ‘thing’ by the hanger and strode into the changing cubicle. When she emerged, Daphne gave a great shriek of hysterical laughter - to her credit, still wearing the hideous pink dress - and the two of them found they could barely keep themselves upright for laughter. 

A movement outside the window caught Hermione’s eye a few seconds later, and she turned to see Draco and Theo walking past, hands quietly linked, heads turned towards each other in muted conversation. If the weather were any inconvenience to them, it didn’t show, and they clearly had an _impervio_ of their own up to keep them mostly dry. 

The boys paused, as if sensing her gaze, and watched as Hermione and Daphne still clung to each other through their lingering hysterics. Theo’s face adopted an intense expression which was hard to read through the bevelled glass of the shop front, but Hermione thought she detected a slight smile at the corner of his lips. 

“What is it?” Daphne asked, turning to follow Hermione’s gaze before adding a soft, “Oh.” Then she laughed. “Shall we give them a twirl?” she said, spinning around so that the skirts of the dress swirled out in a wide fan around her. 

Theo made a theatrical bow, feigning approval of their sartorial choices, and Draco shook his head in obvious disgust, but did crack a smile. 

Hermione was rather more embarrassed that they’d seen her in something so frumpy and unflattering, and turned for the changing rooms. As she passed a rail of dresses though, one in particular caught her eye. 

Long, dark blue and essentially backless, with a high neckline and a gauzy spiderweb fabric covering a huge slit from the ankle to halfway up the thigh, the dress did fit the Halloween theme, though it was somewhat more adventurous than she would naturally go for. 

Daphne saw what had snagged her attention, and she hummed softly. “Try it on,” she said in a different voice. “I think you could definitely pull that off.” 

“It’d look better on you,” Hermione mumbled immediately. “You’ve got the legs for it.” 

Daphne pulled a face. “Needs someone with more curves than I have,” she said, eyeing her own narrow hips. “I think you should try it. Come on, it couldn’t be worse than that tartan one, could it?” she said. “I’m going to try this green one - don’t comment on the fact that it’s exactly Slytherin green, ok? It suits my skin tone as well as my house allegiance - and then we can grab the rest of our purchases and finish up at the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer.” 

Hermione bit her lip, but relented and tried the dress on. 

Standing in the changing rooms, she remembered the last time she’d been dress shopping. Then she’d had Ginny and Harry with her, whose opinions she trusted implicitly. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Daphne, per se, but she didn’t really know her all that well. Would the Slytherin just tell her it looked good anyway? Would she let her look like a fool in front of everyone just so she could look good? 

“Don’t,” Hermione growled at herself as she undid the zip at the back and cast the tartan monstrosity aside to step into the blue one. “She’s not like that. Stop inventing problems for yourself like you always do.” She’d always been good at talking herself into and out of situations after all. 

The dress fitted like a dream, and as she drew the zip up the back with a flick of her wand, it closed around her like a glove and she stared at herself in the mirror. The rain had made her hair truly enormous, but as she corralled it into a bun with a magically reinforced hair-tie, she glimpsed the line of her neck in the dress and thought she didn’t look too shabby. The fact that it was backless was also surprisingly fun… 

She had none of the grace and aristocratic poise of Daphne, but the way the dress hugged her waist and skimmed over her hips did look admittedly rather good. The slit up the side was definitely more adventurous than she was used to, but the stylised cobwebs lent it an air of modesty at least. Under normal circumstances, the Halloween Feast was just that - a feast - but this time McGonagall had planned a bit of a dance afterwards. Nothing as fancy as a Yule Ball, but still, the headmistress was clearly looking for any reason to be festive after the grief and suffering of the recent past. 

“What’s it like?” Daphne called to her, and, with one last look in the mirror, Hermione drew the curtain aside. 

“Needs heels,” she said bashfully as she stepped out. “It’s dragging a bit on the floor. Of course, I could just transfigure it a bit shorter - take a bit off the hem. Molly Weasley taught me a few handy spells like that, but —” 

“— Hermione, with all due respect,” Daphne said with a huge smile on her face, “Shut up. It’s perfect. You look incredible. I’m tempted to ask you to save me a dance!” 

At that, Hermione flushed hot and let her eyes go to the window again. The street outside was empty and rain-washed, the boys having moved on elsewhere. She wasn’t sure if the emptiness inside her was relief or disappointment. 

Daphne’s lips quirked into a tiny smile. “They’ll enjoy the full benefit of it later. Trust me,” she whispered, and Hermione looked at her with wide eyes. Daphne only smiled again, and said, “I’m going to try this on after you’ve finished in there, and then let’s head out.” 

Naturally, Daphne looked stunning in the long, green silk dress, but she still had the grace to ask Hermione for her thoughts on it, and once they were back into their normal clothes, they paid for their purchases and scurried out into the sheeting rain once more. 

The Three Broomsticks was heaving, but they secured a table near the back. “Drinks on me,” Daphne said in a tone that brooked no argument. “What do you want?” 

“Butterbeer please,” Hermione said, rubbing her arms to try and warm up a little before she really began to feel the benefit of the enormous log fire. 

A coil of her hair sprang loose from the confines of the bun and fell forward into her eyes. She left it as it was, and looked around at the witch and wizards getting on with their lives in the pub. Many bore scars and still-healing injuries from the final battle, but most of them looked happy again. 

Memories floated like ghosts across her vision as she sat and watched Daphne queue at the bar. In her mind’s eye, she saw Ron and Harry, Dean and Ginny, Malfoy with dark circles beneath his silver eyes and a haunted look on his face… The clunk of a glass tankard on the wood made her jump and she looked up as Daphne slid into the bench opposite her. 

“You ok?” she asked. “You had one of those thousand-yard stares…” 

“Just reminiscing,” she said. Clinking her glass against Daphne’s, she said, “To new beginnings…” 

“Indeed. Thanks for coming today,” Daphne smiled as she sipped and gained a froth-moustache from her own butterbeer. They wiped their matching moustaches away with matching smiles, and Hermione leaned back in the creaky pub seat. 

“It’s nice,” she said to the blonde across from her. “I’ve never really had any female friends. Actually, I’ve never really had any friends other than Harry and Ron… People tend to find me a bit intense, but Ginny and I have grown closer in the past year or so…” 

“I don’t,” Daphne said. “Find you intense, that is. I think you’re brilliant, obviously, but you’ve always been so kind…” 

Hermione shrugged, embarrassed. “I guess… I know what it’s like to be an outsider, and I don’t want anyone to feel like that if I can do something about it…” 

“I know,” Daphne said, blue eyes sparkling. 

Hermione sensed that there was a S.P.E.W. comment lurking in there, but she let it lie. 

“You know, I… I wanted to thank you for offering to help Draco with that blood curse thing…” Daphne said awkwardly, much to Hermione’s confusion as she stared into the foam atop her butterbeer. “I kind of freaked out at first, but I know you didn’t know who it was for at the time, but… it’s for Toria. He’s trying to help us.” 

Hermione’s eyebrows flew up and she felt her lips part in horror and sympathy for the girl. “Your sister…?” she breathed. 

“Mmm,” she said, still not meeting her gaze. “It’s an old family blood malediction, and… it’s manifested in Astoria. When Draco found out, he said he’d check the family library at Malfoy Manor for us, and he spent the month after his trial researching it for me.” 

“Did he find anything helpful?” 

Daphne’s eyes turned sad and she shook her head. “No, not really. One or two ideas came up, but even the book he got from the restricted section didn’t help. When it’s a curse that old - that deeply ingrained with the family - there’s little you can do. Toria wants me to stop trying now, but… I can’t… I can’t just let it go and watch her fade away.” 

“She’s your sister,” Hermione said, reaching across and gripping Daphne’s pale, fragile looking hand where it lay on the age-scuffed surface of the table. “Of _course_ you want to do all you can for her. Please tell me if I can help, Daphne. I don’t want to intrude, but please let me know if I can do anything.” 

Daphne blinked rapidly and squeezed her back. “Thank you, Hermione. That means a lot to me.” 

Before either of them could say more on the topic, the door to the pub opened again and in stepped Theo, shaking water from his hair like a dog and making Draco hiss indignantly and step back. He sneered some comment about there being a spell for that, but Theo just laughed and nuzzled his nose briefly against Draco’s, which made the latter grimace and then smile. 

When the taller boy looked around and caught sight of Hermione and Daphne a second later, his grin broadened to create matching dimples in his cheeks, and Hermione’s stomach swooped in a way that had nothing to do with the butterbeer in it. Holy fucking Merlin, he was attractive. 

Daphne glanced over her shoulder, golden hair glittering in the firelight, and when she turned back to Hermione, one eyebrow rose. “Shall we ask them over?” 

“Up to you,” Hermione said, though she couldn’t deny the butterflies that shimmered through her all the same. 

In the end, Draco and Theo invited themselves over, Draco joining with a glass of gillywater and Theo with a butterbeer. “You two ladies find something utterly distracting and d-devastating for the dance then?” Theo asked as he slid in next to Daphne and left Draco to take a seat beside Hermione. “Have to say, that pink looked… uh…” 

“Don’t even —” Daphne giggled, smacking him in the chest with the back of her hand. “We were playing around and you know it.” 

“Still… I think you should have got it…” 

“Over my dead body,” Daphne snorted. 

Draco was wearing his usual black trousers, white shirt, and smart shoes. The only hint of colour about him lay in the fine, soft weave of his dark green jumper, which almost matched Daphne’s, though his pullover was thinner and less chunky than hers. He offered Hermione a guarded smile askance as he sat, and she returned it by blushing. 

Daphne shot Hermione a grin and said, “You’ll have to wait til later to see what we actually bought, won’t you?” 

“Ooh, the mystery!” Theo chuckled, nudging her shoulder with his. “The suspense! However will I en-endure it?” 

They all snorted, and the conversation drifted on to other things. 

Hermione noted that Draco was even quieter and more withdrawn than usual, but she didn’t bring it up at the table, and by the time the carriages came to the top of town to pick the students up again, the four of them were climbing into the same one together to head back to the school. 

“See you at the feast later,” Daphne said, eyeing the huge brown paper bag in Hermione’s hands. “And make sure you put your hair up - like you did at the Yule Ball that time… It’ll look amazing.” 

“She’ll look amazing however she does her hair,” Theo said charmingly, and Hermione found herself rolling her eyes as she headed upstairs. Harry and Ron had never bothered to boost her confidence like that, but she supposed that was what she got for being best friends with them for so long. 

Her friendship with the Slytherins was different because they were forming these new bonds so much older. It was impossible to deny the slight heat that ran beneath Theo's playful compliments, or the thrumming intensity of Draco’s gaze, and it made Hermione ache in ways she’d never imagined she could. 

Ginny, of course, demanded to see the dress she’d bought when the redhead stumped back in from a day spent on the quidditch pitch. “Shower first,” Hermione scolded affectionately. “I’m not going to the feast with bits of turf and mud all over it from your grubby paws!” 

Ginny laughed and flipped her off affectionately as she sloughed off her soaked quidditch kit in the corner and made a beeline for the bathroom. Scrubbed and pink in the face from the heat of the water, she emerged half an hour later and flopped onto Hermione’s bed in her underwear to cool off a bit after a scorchingly hot shower. 

“Feel more human again?” Hermione asked as she tried to coax a section of her hair into an orderly corkscrew around her wand with a generous dollop of Sleakeasy's she’d bought earlier that day. “Oh, I bought you some Wonderwaves when I was in Hogsmeade earlier, by the way. You said you were running low the other day.” 

“Hermione, you’re a saint,” Ginny grinned. “Will you do my hair after you’ve finished yours? The way you did it for Bill’s wedding?” 

When Hermione finally had both of them looking presentable, she got out the dress and levitated it so she could smooth out a few crinkles with another of Molly Weasley’s infallible charms. 

Ginny’s eyes widened and she pinched a fold of the heavy, navy blue fabric between finger and thumb. “Hermione, this is gorgeous… You are wearing the heels again by the way. No debate. In fact, I’m just going to give them to you.” 

“Thank you, Ginny,” she said with a shy half-smile. “I’ve grown rather fond of those shoes…” She was not about to admit to rather enjoying holding onto Draco’s arm as they made their way back from Hogsmeade, but Ginny spotted the look on her face anyway and grinned. “And yes… I fancied something new, given that I wore That Red Dress relatively recently.” 

“Can I wear the red one then?” Ginny said carefully. “You’ll have to transfigure it to fit me better, but…” 

“Of course, but I’d suggest altering the colour as well…” 

Ginny pulled a face, but agreed that that particular shade of red did her hair and skin tone no favours. “How about purple?” 

By the time they were both ready to go down to the feast, it was nearly time for it to start, so they scurried through the castle, picking up Neville in the common room, stressing over the fact that his bow tie wouldn’t stay tied. With a few flicks of Hermione’s wand, the bow stood perfectly, and Neville’s surprisingly broad shoulders sagged with relief. “Thanks, Hermione.” 

“No problem. In payment, you can lend me your arm down the stairs,” she laughed. 

As the three of them entered the hall, they saw that the houses had been permitted to sit wherever they liked, and the Gryffindor table was now home to a large knot of Ravenclaws, including Luna and Padma, as well as a few cheery Hufflepuffs. Hannah took one look at Neville and flushed beetroot red, and Neville tripped on the threshold of the hall, nearly threatening to take Hermione down with him. 

“Easy, Neville,” she laughed quietly in his ear once he was steady again. “Breathe. You’ll be fine. She already adores you.” 

“I… I wanted to ask her out this weekend,” he spluttered back in a hoarse whisper, “But… I kind of lost my nerve.” 

“You are Neville Long bottom, Slayer of the Great Serpent,” Ginny said, digging him in the ribs. “You can ask Hannah Abbott out for a date.” 

“You’re right. I can, and I will,” he said, gritting his teeth and striding away from them towards her without another word. 

Ginny looked at Hermione, grinned, and then they linked arms briefly before parting and taking separate sides of the table to sit with the others. 

The hall had been bedecked with the usual gigantic pumpkins, courtesy of Hagrid, and between the festooning cobwebs bats wheeled and fluttered about in a buzz of wings. They soared and dived through the enchanted ceiling while glittering gold leaves spiralled down to melt into nothing a mere foot above the tables. 

Perhaps it was being muggleborn, but the wonder and spectacle of magic like this never ceased to steal Hermione’s breath away. 

The rumble of jubilant conversation filled the entire hall, and it was almost enough to make the last few years disappear into nothing but a wash of nightmare memories. All that was missing now was Harry and Ron discussing quidditch strategies for their next match, or what the food was going to be like that night. Something warm and golden settled into Hermione’s chest at that thought, and she smiled as she looked across the table and watched Ginny toss her newly-curled red hair back and laugh. With the death of her beloved brother still so recent and raw, the girl deserved time to laugh like that. 

A moment later, just as as Neville looked up from whispering something in Hannah's ear that made her blush happily, his face fell and he stared at the spot behind Hermione. 

Warily, half expecting a mountain troll or a joke from Peeves, she turned. 

“Draco? Theo?” she asked, relaxing a fraction as she found the two boys standing there. They looked devastatingly handsome again in their smart black robes, with crisp white shirts and Slytherin ties apiece. 

“Mind if we join you?” Theo ventured hopefully. 

Hermione turned back to face the other Gryffindors. “Do we?” she asked. 

Ginny had stopped laughing, but she pouted thoughtfully and eyed the space beside Hermione. It was just enough for two slim Slytherin boys to slide into. “On one condition,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows in a manner that would have had her mother scoffing at her, and staring straight at Draco. “The ferret has to tell me what the best quidditch team is.” 

“UK or international?” he said without hesitation. 

“UK to start with…” 

“The Montrose Magpies seem fairly unstoppable at the moment,” he said carefully, “But you have to admire the Harpies for focus and determination…” 

Ginny's eyes narrowed, but before she could give an answer, McGonagall’s voice boomed from the far end and Hermione jumped. “Students! If you please… Would you take your seats! I have a few announcements to make before we begin our celebratory Halloween Feast!” 

Hermione looked back at Draco and Theo still standing in the gangway between the Gryffindor table and its neighbour, the Hufflepuffs. “Oh for goodness’ sake,” she snapped. “Just sit.” 

Ginny raised her eyebrows but offered no comment to the contrary. Hermione arched an amused eyebrow at her, but scooted up a little bit as Draco levered his long legs into the bench beside her, followed by Theo who braced his hand on Draco’s shoulder to steady himself and squeeze into the tight space remaining. 

Seated next to Hermione, Draco leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.” 

She shivered involuntarily and looked up at him. Even in class, she had never sat this close to him, with his leg pressed against the entire length of her own in the tight space at the table, and she was stunned anew at the porcelain perfection of his skin as she glanced up at him. She’d always known he was beautiful, but this close up, he was… divine. “No problem,” she breathed weakly, lost for anything else to say. 

“Pumpkin juice?” Luna in a singsong voice, levitating the jug towards them. “Or there’s Butterbeer for eighth years.” 

“Is there?” Theo asked, impressed. “Well, I’ll have a glass of that then, thank you. Draco?” 

“Pumpkin is fine,” Draco mumbled. He took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly through his nose. 

He seemed to be looking anywhere but in Hermione’s direction now, and Hermione felt suddenly awkward. Did he regret sitting over here? Had Theo dragged him over from the relative safety of their fellow Slytherins? A surreptitious glance over at the Slytherin table showed her that most of them had not been welcomed to sit with anyone else, though she was relieved to see that Daphne was sharing a laugh with a Ravenclaw boy at the Hufflepuff table. 

When she turned back, she found that Draco was now looking at her, and when she met his eyes, a gloriously adorable blush warmed his icy cheekbones. “Granger, you look beautiful,” he said in a gravelly undertone. “Truly.” 

“Thank you,” she said, fighting the crazed thudding of her heart in her chest. “It was Daphne who encouraged me to get it really…” 

“I shall have to thank her then,” he said smoothly. 

From the top table, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat as the last few students finally scuttled into empty seats like stray cockroaches. 

“Thank you,” she said pointedly in her clipped accent. “Now, before we begin, I would like to impress upon all of you just how proud I am of how this term has progressed. We have endured much in the past few years — in the past few months — and yet I cannot help but feel that we have emerged stronger, more united, and with a deeper understanding of what it means to be witches and wizards, united by our magic and divided by nothing but our own former misconceptions.” 

At that, Hermione risked a sidelong look at Draco and found him staring into a newly-poured glass of pumpkin juice in front of him. Feeling brave, she nudged her knee against his and he jerked his head up at her, glowering in momentary confusion. She raised her eyebrows and then smiled. 

Draco softened visibly and permitted himself a shy, fleeting smile back, followed by a respectful nod. 

In the background, McGonagall continued. “… so I wish to announce that this December will see the reintroduction of the festive Yule Ball, which has not been held here for almost four years.” 

Draco’s eyebrows shot up and he exchanged a look with Theo beside him. The hall exploded into chattering speculation on all sides, until McGonagall had to raise her wand to her throat again and magnify her voice even further to be heard over the excited hubbub. 

“If you please!” she called, and then waited for silence to fall once more. When she had it at last, she continued. “Only those students in fifth year and above will be able to attend, as is tradition,” she stressed. “And those who will have returned home for the holidays may board the Hogwarts Express from King’s Cross at eleven o’clock on the morning of December 25th for a specially chartered journey. The train will return to London the next day at 2pm sharp from Hogsmeade. Attendance forms will go out before the end of term to gauge numbers.” 

McGonagall paused to let the information sink in, and then added, “Now, as you have no doubt noticed by now, the rules this evening are somewhat more relaxed than usual. I am heartened to see so many of you sitting with friends from other houses, but -” and here she shot a quick look at the Slytherin table, who were mostly not making eye contact with the rest of the hall, “- I must impress upon you the work we still have to do. After the feast, the tables will be moved aside, and we will provide music for those of you to dance who wish it. 

“Finally, I urge you to enjoy the festive celebrations tonight, when the magic of the world runs strongest, and to share this night with your fellow witches and wizards in the spirit of continued companionship and camaraderie. Let this be yet another opportunity to show the wider wizarding community how far we have already come in building bridges and relationships for the future… hmm?” 

And with that, she clapped her hands in a manner reminiscent of Albus Dumbledore, and the feast began. Tables suddenly groaned with platters of spectacular food, and the students lost no time in digging in. 

The presence of the two Slytherins at their table did cause some initial frostiness, though it did thaw somewhat when Ginny clearly baited Draco into a lengthy debate about the trickiest quidditch manoeuvre to pull off, and when Theo charmed Padma by openly admitting that he thought Myron Wagtail was indeed exceptionally beautiful and clearly the best looking of all the Weird Sisters. 

“Takes someone very confident in their sexuality to admit that,” Ginny smirked at him, pausing her quidditch argument with Draco to interrupt. 

“Oh, I am,” Theo said, turning to Draco who had frozen warily on the point of bringing his goblet to his lips. 

“Theo…” he growled in warning, but Theo grinned and leaned down to plant an enormous kiss on his cheek. 

“Don’t worry, darling,” he cooed at Draco while everyone either gawped or giggled, “You’re still the most beautiful man in the world to me.” 

“I hate you so much sometimes,” Draco muttered into his pumpkin juice. 

Neville laughed gently and said, “Never thought I’d see Draco Malfoy reduced to a blushing maiden…” 

“And at the Gryffindor table too,” Ginny added. 

“I hate you all,” Draco said without sting, and they all laughed again. 

“So… The Yule Ball is back, huh?” Neville grinned, leaning over the table to ladle a heap of steaming pumpkin risotto onto his plate. “No Krum this year, Hermione,” he laughed. 

“No,” she muttered. “He’s training for his next match anyway.” 

“You’re still in touch with him?” Draco asked, clearly surprised. 

“Mmm,” she nodded, slicing off a piece of spiced pumpkin and chestnut loaf from a nearby board. “We still owl occasionally. His English is slowly improving, though not by much.” 

She didn’t miss the look that he and Theo exchanged, but chose to ignore it for the time being. The feast was amazing, and halfway through, Ginny surprised her by leaning forward on the table on her elbows and directly addressing Draco again. “Alright, Ferret,” she said and Theo nearly spewed meat pie all over the table as he bit back a guffawing laugh just in time. He didn’t, but it was a close call. “I’ve got another question for you.” 

Draco raised an eyebrow but remained silently civil. 

“Tell me something.” 

“Upon what subject would you have me speak now, dear Ginevra?” he asked in a silky, obsequious tone. “Or is it still quidditch?” 

“Ooh, you’re still a snotty little Slytherin, aren't you?” she asked without sting. 

“He certainly can be,” Theo agreed, digging Malfoy in the ribs with his elbow. 

“It’s still quidditch. I’m undecided on whether or not your opinions are solid. Who's a better chaser, Troy or Dimitrov?” 

“Easy,” Draco drawled. “Dimitrov.” 

“Of course you go for the Bulgarian,” she scoffed. “You should have been at Durmstrang.” 

“I nearly was,” he said easily, picking at a miniature stuffed pumpkin with his fork and not looking entirely enthused by the prospect of eating it. “But ‘Mother dearest’ couldn’t bear the thought of me being so far away. Luckily, I was sent here so that I could torment you, Weasley. Dimitrov is clearly a better flyer and you’d have to be blind to think that a thug like Troy could outmatch him.” 

“The only place you torment me is on the quidditch pitch, and even then, I’d still wipe the floor with you and your fancy broom.” 

“Maybe. Guess we’ll find out in a few days,” he said with an oddly sad smile on his face. 

The lack of vitriol, the lack of feeling, in his voice clearly took the wind out of Ginny’s sails, and she sighed. “Guess we will. You’re bloody good though, Malfoy. Seriously. Never seen a seeker like you. Maybe not even Harry.” 

“Praise indeed,” he purred, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. 

“I mean it,” she grumped into her pumpkin soup. “We’re gonna be in real trouble next weekend if you’re on top form.” 

“Flattery will only get you a little way with me, Weasley,” he said with affected grace. 

“Don’t make me bat bogey you again, Malfoy,” she said with a smirk and he paled visibly. “I'm trying to pay you a compliment.” 

Reflexively touching his nose, he snorted. “Merlin, spare me the indignity of that again. I’d rather be punched in the face by Granger. Again.” 

“You punched Malfoy in the face?” Ginny blurted, nearly dropping her spoon and goggling at Hermione. They had the attention of everyone within earshot now. “How did I not know about that?!” 

“Mm, I did,” she said coolly, looking at him askance. “Third year.” 

“Broke it,” Draco said, half turning to meet her gaze with respect in his silver eyes. "That was the year I learned _‘_ _episkey_ _’_ , thanks to you.” 

“You’re welcome,” she said, smirking openly. “Always happy to help teach, Malfoy.” 

At that, his cheeks flushed. He looked away, and Theo began to splutter into his food again. No one quite dared ask what she was hinting at, but the two boys knew full well, and Hermione wasn’t about to admit that she’d caught them at it (again) in a classroom… 

Once the staff left after all the food, McGonagall cleared the benches and tables to the sides of the hall with a wave of her wand, and someone set up a gramophone and amplified it to fill the hall with music. Hermione, Neville, Hannah, Ginny, Draco, and Theo remained on the benches at the side of the room to start with, chatting over the remnants of their butterbeers while the younger years bopped artlessly about, but when someone slid a new record onto the gramophone, Ginny perked up. 

“Weird Sisters!” she grinned. “C’mon Hermione!” And with that, she tugged Hermione almost bodily from the bench, nearly pulling her off her feet so that Hermione had to clutch at Ginny’s arms to stop herself from staggering to the floor, and even then, she had to steady herself on Malfoy’s shoulder too. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled at him. “Ginny, you’re a menace! We don’t all have the agility of a seeker you know! And I’m wearing heels remember!” 

Malfoy’s hand suddenly steadied her at the small of her back, and she leaned into it instinctively until she got her balance in her heels again. Perhaps it was the strengthening of all magic at Halloween, but her inner magic surged for him before she could draw it back in. The feel of him, his fingers subtly sliding around her waist before retreating, had made her head spin, but she bit it back and schooled her expression into something hopefully more appropriate. 

“Thank you,” she said, a little breathless as she cast him a look, but he wasn’t looking at her at all and was instead reaching for Theo’s butterbeer. Theo’s dark blue eyes met hers over Draco’s head as his boyfriend extracted the drink from his fingers, and he winked subtly at her but said nothing, surrendering the beer wordlessly to Draco. 

Ginny watched the exchange curiously, and then yanked her out towards the space where people were dancing. She caught sight of Daphne, still with the Ravenclaw, and allowed herself a brief smile. 

“What was that all about?” Ginny asked in a hiss as they linked fingers and began to dance. 

She shrugged, head still spinning from the unexpected intimacy of Malfoy’s touch and the way her magic had leapt towards him. Had his done the same? Or had his pureblood magic recoiled from her own muggleborn magic like oil and water? What had he felt? Had he felt anything? 

“Oh no,” Ginny said, leaning in. “You don’t get to play coy with me. You like them, don’t you?” 

“Of course I like them,” she said quickly, spinning beneath Ginny’s arm and then prompting her to do the same. 

When they came back together again, Ginny said, “Yeah, but… you like them. Both of them.” 

“They’ve been very kind to me this term,” she said carefully. “You know they have. And yes, I think they’re attractive, but they’re together, Ginny. I’m not going to get in the middle of anything…” 

She pursed her lips and then stepped in close and smirked. “They look like they’d like _you_ in the middle of _them_ …” 

“Ginny!” she gasped, but Ginny pushed her away as she turned, and Hermione found herself falling straight into the arms of Draco who had come up behind her. 

“I was about to ask you for the next dance,” he said as he set her back on her feet for the second time that evening, “But it seems dear Ginevra has decided for you…” 

“No one decides for me,” she said sternly, “But I will dance with you.” 

“Call me Ginevra again,” Ginny snarled from behind Hermione, “And I’ll hex your broom first and your bollocks next…” Draco inclined his head in apology, and Ginny rolled her eyes. “Have fun,” she said. “I’m going to find Luna.” 

And with that, she left Hermione in Draco Malfoy’s arms. 

“You don’t have to dance with me if it makes you uncomfortable,” Draco said, adjusting his grip on her hand as the music changed from upbeat to something slightly steadier, though it was still a fair way from a slow dance to Hermione’s relief. Her heartbeat had picked up again, and her magic was roiling inside her like a thunderstorm in a teacup. 

People were staring openly at them and she shot two Ravenclaw girls a dirty glare over Draco’s shoulder as they goggled at her. “I’m not the best at dancing,” she said, “But as long as you’re ok with that, I’m very happy to dance with you.” 

Draco looked oddly taken aback by how readily she agreed to dance with him, but as he took waist in his pale fingers too, he thawed out a little. His pale lips twitched into a smile and he nodded. “Alright then. If you’re comfortable, you should relax. It’s like dancing with a statue.” 

“Sorry…” 

“You really don’t like to be led, do you...?” he added, more as an afterthought than a criticism. 

“I’ve been told I have trouble letting go,” she winced, trying to let go a bit more. “You certainly seem to know what you’re doing though, so I suppose I shouldn’t worry.” 

He quirked a devastatingly handsome, lopsided smirk, and spun her around experimentally. As she went, she caught sight of Theo watching the intently from the sidelines at their end of the hall, near the main doors. “He’s plotting to intervene,” Draco commented offhandedly when he spotted where her eyes had wandered. “I’m determined to get in at least two dances before he manages it.” 

She raised her eyebrows and laughed, tipping her head back and feeling gloriously lightheaded and happy. If only the Yule Ball had been like this, without all the posturing and awkwardness and upset… 

Some of her open joy seemed to reflect in Malfoy’s mirror eyes, as he ventured another little smile and dipped her low, eyes never leaving hers. Breathless and speechless, she let him draw her back up again and they carried on without pause or interruption. 

The next song was slow, and she allowed herself to lean into his strong, lithe body. After only a few steps though, she noticed that his muscular chest was barely rising and falling, as though he hardly dared breathe. “Malfoy...?” 

“Mmm?” 

“You’re not very good at relaxing, are you?” she said with quiet coyness. “Now who’s the statue?” 

“No,” he laughed. “I’m not,” he chuckled, taking the liberty of twirling her gently under his arm before drawing her back to his solid, lean chest. “Gods, Granger, you look so beautiful in that dress.” His grey eyes wandered down the front of it to the long slit up the thigh, and he swallowed thickly, the sharp angles of his Adam’s apple standing out starkly in the candlelight. 

“Thank you,” she said again. “You and Theo both look pretty good yourselves you know?” 

He was smirking softly. “Thanks, Granger.” 

“I’m glad Ginny was nice to you,” she said as they turned again and she caught a glimpse of Ginny, Luna, Neville and Hannah all dancing nearby. 

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was ‘nice’,” Draco hedged, “But I’m glad we have some common ground.” 

“People would be surprised if they knew how much common ground there is between everyone…” she said, and Draco hummed in agreement. 

“Speaking of… I honestly thought you were going to shoot me down for asking you to dance, Granger,” he said as he turned them slowly again. 

“Why?” 

He shrugged. 

“Honestly, Draco… You took me to dinner for my birthday. If I didn’t trust you by then, I wouldn’t have gone, and I think I said so then as well.” 

“You’re so fierce,” he blurted in an awestruck whisper, and she laughed. “And you make a good point about dinner,” Draco said, returning to their original conversation. “But that wasn’t exactly as… uh… public as this is…” He looked pointedly around at the other groups and couples dancing. 

“I’m not ashamed to be friends with you, Draco,” she said, gripping his callused fingers tightly. “You’ve changed, and if I can help other people see that - starting with Ginny - then I’m only too happy to make that friendship very much public.” 

Draco blinked, the mercury irises of his eyes shining and glassy. He looked winded and stunned, but he brought his body half a step closer to hers and she felt his fingers tighten on her waist. “Thank you, Granger,” he whispered in her ear a moment later, words hoarse. 

As the music faded and a brighter song began, she felt a tap on her shoulder and as she turned, Malfoy growled something. It was too late, however, since her grip on his fingers was already loosened, and Theo scooped her up and spun her away. “Mind if I cut in?” he snickered as they began another one. “Can’t let you and Draco hog all the attention n-now, can we?” 

“No, but your boyfriend looks ready to murder you,” she snorted, adjusting her step and stance for his slightly taller body and more willowy movements. He wasn’t as good a dancer as Draco, but she was the last person to judge. 

“Ach, Draco can punish me all he likes later,” he said with a wink. “You’re well worth it.” 

“Theo...” she gasped, but he just kept dancing, and she just kept laughing. 

Two songs later, the music faded once again to a slower tempo and Theo guided them to the very edge of the dancing space, even nearer to the entrance hall doors where it was a little quieter. A cool breeze wafted in, and she was in less danger of having her long dress trampled by passing feet. 

“I thought you were going to ask Draco to dance when you came over, not me,” she said as he twirled her out and back into his hold. 

“Draco and I have had plenty of opportunity to dance together,” he said, adding with a wicked glint in his eye, “Why, d’you want to watch?” 

She snorted and said, “I think I’ve ‘watched’ enough of you two together already… don’t you?” 

His lips twitched but he didn’t say anything. After a while of just dancing again, Theo spoke. “Gods, it’s good just to let loose and have a bit of fun, isn’t it?” 

“Certainly makes a change from being pawns in a bigger war,” she agreed darkly, and Theo nodded and sighed. 

“You were used too, weren’t you?” he said quietly as they moved together. It was hardly dancing now, more standing and swaying with hands held, but neither of them seemed to object. “Not in the way Draco was, but…” 

“Yeah,” she said as he turned them slowly, lazily, and the view of the cobweb-draped hall swung into view for her once more. “Dumbledore certainly used us - Harry most of all. We just happened to be fighting on the other side from Draco…” She drew a deep breath and looked up at Theo. 

His blue eyes glittered in the candlelight as he watched her intensely. Her eye was caught by the way he swallowed nervously, reminding her of Draco not so long ago. She did want to watch the two of them dancing together, she realised, but - perhaps selfishly - she wasn’t prepared to let go of him and give up this new, dizzying feeling that dancing with him brought her. 

“Of course, that didn’t mean we had much more say in it than Draco did,” she went on, trying not to think about how close they were or how warm his palms were. As before with Draco, she felt her magic aching to coil around his, seeking him out hungrily, the strength of it peaking naturally at this ‘hallowed’ time of the year. “At least we didn’t have the same kinds of threats hanging over the three of us all the time like Draco must have had. He’s… He must be incredibly brave.” 

Theo straightened a little at that - she hadn’t realised how much he’d been hunched towards her as they danced slowly, their foreheads almost touching now - and he fixed her with an odd, glassy-eyed expression. “You’re the only other person who’s ever seen that about him,” he whispered. “Hermione, you —” he broke off and closed his eyes briefly. This close up, she could have counted the freckles on his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. He had a tiny scar at the end of one eyebrow. 

A moment later, his lips parted softly and his pupils soared wide and dark. His fingers tightened on hers and he drew her so close to him that she could smell his cologne and see the coppery highlights from the candles on his long eyelashes. If she hadn’t known that he was in a solid relationship with Draco, she might have thought he was about to kiss her. 

He leaned an impossible fraction closer. 

With a wild swoop of joy and fear, she did think he was about to kiss her. 

“Theo?” she whispered, eyes widening, magic flaring hot and searing her to her core. 

She _wanted_. 

Merlin, she wanted him, and she knew it was wrong. 

A gulf opened up inside her as the two halves of her began to wrench each other apart, shearing and tearing like the land during an earthquake; she wanted Theo to kiss her but she knew it would ruin everything they had tentatively built between them these past few weeks if she let him. 

He stopped dancing altogether and brought his hand to her cheek, fingertips lingering, and she closed her eyes, hardly daring to breathe. If she remained passive, immobile, then it wouldn’t be her fault. Gods, what kind of cowardly reasoning was that? And from a Gryffindor too. 

“Remarkable,” he whispered, thumb tracing a soft arc across her cheek. “Hermione, you’re…” 

“Theo…” she sighed, and opened her eyes. 

When she spotted the figure standing in the shadows behind Theo with his arms crossed, silver gaze locked on them, body leaning against the stonework of the entrance hall archway just beyond, she gasped and clapped her hand across her mouth, lurching back away from Theo. 

How long had Draco been standing there? How much had he heard? Or seen? 

“Oh Godric, Draco, this isn’t what it looks like…” she blurted, “I…” 

She wanted to run. Every instinct told her to run but she couldn’t move. 

To her continuing shock, Theo just smiled, holding his hand out so casually towards Draco, inviting him over. He was behaving as if he hadn’t just had his other hand on the cheek of someone who was most definitely not his boyfriend, very clearly thinking about leaning in and kissing her. 

And Draco just levered himself off the wall to join them with the nonchalance of a cat, all languid lines and fluid grace. 

Why wasn’t Draco angry? 

Or was he…? 

Could he perhaps be occluding so forcibly that all expression was wiped blank from his face? 

No… 

She looked a little more carefully in the dim torchlight, her heart still pounding, mind racing. His eyes were… _soft_. How was that possible? 

Had he somehow _expected_ Theo to betray him like this with her? A sharp pang shot through her chest and she found herself rooted to the spot. “Draco?” she whispered. 

He took Theo’s outstretched hand and stepped right up close to him, possessive and powerful, and he crushed a kiss to Theo’s lips. His right hand remained loose by his side, silver signet ring glinting softly, but his left clutched Theo’s fiercely. 

She swallowed and her vision swam as tears filled her eyes. 

He was telling her that she could never have Theo. Theo belonged to him, and Malfoys do not share the things they hold dear after all. 

She turned on her heel and fled up the staircase, heedless of the shout that rang through the echoing entrance hall after her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! You made it to the end of the chapter! What do you think?! You do still trust me, right??? Hang on in there... Trust me... please...
> 
> *clutches the tentacula close and waits nervously for your feedback...*
> 
> (also I'm sorry for any mistakes in this - this is the most I've ever reworked a chapter, and it's been sitting in front of me for nearly six hours (it's Sunday and pouring with rain), so... I'm sorry if I messed up - please tell me if I made any mistakes. I can't see the proverbial wood for the proverbial trees any more)


	17. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione faces the aftermath of her panicked exit from the Halloween feast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. WOW. W O W. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your amazing feedback. I love how exasperated most of you are with Hermione being so oblivious, and misreading everything. I think part of that is due to her lack of self-esteem in any area other than intellect, and part of it is due to the fact that she's not really considered polyamory as an option... yet. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the resolution you've been waiting for. I hope you enjoy it. This chapter means a lot to me for a number of reasons.

Hermione ran up the stairs, and though there were footsteps behind her, she did not look back or slow down.

Ducking beneath a faded tapestry, she took a lesser-known shortcut up an extremely tight, seemingly unending spiral staircase, and barrelled breathlessly out of the top through a hinged painting onto the corridor that led to Gryffindor Tower. As she raced towards it, tears blurring her eyes, she barked the password at a snoozing Fat Lady’s portrait. 

The painting’s subject startled awake from a doze and spilled the box of chocolates that had been arranged in her lap all over the canvas’ floor, before swinging open with a scoff and slamming shut behind her, muttering about decorum and unseemly behaviour for a witch of Hermione’s age.

Hermione fought not to go to pieces as she entered the mercifully deserted common room, its reds and golds muted in the darkness. Even the fire had gone out, and the room had a strange, almost eerie chill to it. Godric, what had she been thinking? “I wasn’t thinking; that’s the problem!” she scoffed as she flopped down onto the squashy sofa in front of the empty grate and kicked her heels off. 

She’d never in her life imagined that she’d be in this position: attracted to two men and then suddenly getting between them and potentially tearing apart an otherwise solid and healthy relationship? It was unthinkable! She knew, objectively, that she wasn’t utterly unfortunate looking, but she’d never felt like she was anything special, and certainly not attractive enough to tempt a man out of a relationship  _ with another man _ . 

With her mind reeling, that night’s was one of the worst nights of sleep she’d had in a long time, and with the dawn light just lifting the shadows of the room, she rose groggily before Ginny woke, and went to take a long shower after snatching barely two or three hours of broken sleep. 

As she headed glumly down to take a solitary breakfast, her footsteps on the Great Staircase faltered. 

Theo was pacing outside the Great Hall, back and forth, back and forth, on long, slender legs like a caged cheetah. The moment he saw her, he twitched and hurried towards her. 

“Don’t,” she hissed, hurrying for the hall behind him. “I don’t want to talk about it. I made a fool of myself yesterday. And I don’t want to get between you and Draco. What you have is… beautiful, Theo. You’re perfect for each other…” and she barged past him into the Great Hall. “I refuse to get in the way of that.” Perhaps if she could get into the hall, he wouldn’t make a scene; wouldn’t follow her.

She passed him easily enough, only to run nearly headlong into Malfoy, who was standing just inside the hall with his arms crossed, blocking the path to the Gryffindor table. Dammit, they’d planned for this and teamed up against her. 

“Please…” she practically whimpered, desperate not to cause a public fuss, despite the fact that they were almost the only people around at this time of the morning. “Draco…” Her vision swam and she sucked her cheeks in to keep from crying. 

“Granger,” he said, his voice arrestingly gentle. “It’s alright.”

She froze. “What?” 

“It’s alright,” he said again, slowly, as if she were a dangerous animal on the verge of fleeing or lashing out. Unfolding his arms, he moved a little closer to her. His face was still so achingly gentle that she felt her eyes continue to prickle with unspilled tears. Not here. Not because of this horrible mix up. She was not going to cry. 

Hands by his sides, fingers soft and relaxed, he dipped his head a little but still managed to look her in the eye. The effect was utterly disarming. 

“Draco,” she whispered, voice quavering, vision swimming with tears. 

“Please don’t cry, Granger,” he murmured. “Let’s…” he glanced back over his shoulder and then back at her. “Let’s grab some food and find a quiet place to talk, shall we?”

She blinked stupidly at him and his lips quirked into a lopsided and even more disarming smile. 

“Hermione Granger with nothing to say?” he chuckled, one silvery eyebrow raised. 

“I…” she croaked. “You’re not angry?”

Closing his eyes, he shook his head and let out a long breath. “No, Granger. I’m not angry. Theo’s livid that he didn’t get to kiss you yesterday, but I’m not angry.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, floundering, drifting. 

Draco turned away without elaborating, and picked up a plate as it materialised at his approach on the Gryffindor table. He scowled down at it for a moment and then drew out his wand and transfigured it into something a little larger before sliding his wand back into the holster up his right sleeve and loading the platter with pastries and slices of apple and a few grapes. Without looking up from his task, he said softly, “Theo, will you get the mugs? I can’t carry everything.”

She turned reluctantly to look over her shoulder and found a sheepish Theo coming over. His gaze met hers and he offered her a shaky smile before concentrating on finding some earthenware mugs. “Tea? Coffee?” he asked her. “Hot chocolate?”

“Tea,” she croaked. 

This was so strange. 

She felt like she was floating, hanging there like a ghost while they continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary. They shouldn’t be behaving like this. It was beyond baffling. 

Satisfied that he had enough to feed three people at least something for breakfast, Draco turned and strode past her. “Come on, Granger,” he barked as he stepped out into the entrance hall and then on into the chilly autumn day through the main doors of the castle. 

Mutely, with Theo at her side, Hermione allowed herself to follow Malfoy around the line of the castle’s main keep to a small courtyard that had once been a Ravenclaw garden, but centuries earlier had been opened up to anyone seeking a quiet, cloistered place to shelter from rain or sun. Malfoy flicked his wand again and the air warmed under the temporary, localised charm, and he parked himself on the far end of a stone bench against the wall. 

The centre of the tiny quadrangle was filled with fragrant plants, though many of them were dying back at this time of the year. The mint was hanging on well enough, tenacious and vibrant in the late autumn. She noted several uniquely magical varieties, including the dark, almost chocolate colour of ‘thestral mint’, and even a small, shimmering ‘doxy mint’ in one corner. Between the flowerbeds which hugged the corners of the sheltered courtyard, a tiny, neatly clipped lawn stretched out like an inviting picnic blanket, where the tips of the blades of grass bowed beneath the weight of the autumn dewdrops adorning them. Other than the three of them, the place was completely still and silent. 

“Sit, Granger,” Malfoy chuckled when she just ground to a halt and stared at him. “Come on, I swear I’m not going to hex you for nearly kissing my boyfriend.”

“We are going to talk about that though,” Theo said quietly from behind her. “Here,” and he nudged her mug into her hand. 

“Right,” she said, not moving to sit down. 

Theo sighed and sat on the bench too, but he left enough room for her to sit in the middle if she chose to. 

Hermione, on the other hand, moved further away, turning her back on the two boys and staring wide eyed and mostly unseeing at the tiny garden through the lace-like stonework of the cloister arches.  _ Where’s your Gryffindor courage now? _ she scolded herself. Setting her jaw so firmly that her teeth ached, she turned to face them. 

To her surprise, Draco watched her new expression closely, and a slow, beautiful, almost fond smile dawned on his full lips. Where Theo’s were thinner and his smiles usually drew dimples in his cheeks, Draco’s lips were surprisingly soft looking, and she wondered how in all these years she’d never really noticed that. Probably because he’d been so sharp-edged elsewhere, and his cut-glass jawline and silver eyes did nothing to soften his features. 

Malfoy shot Theo a brief look that seemed to carry a lot of words, and Theo’s shoulders dropped with a deliberate effort to relax. It was Theo who began. “Hermione, I’m sorry about yesterday. I hadn’t intended for this go the way it did.”

“You should have thought about that before you thought about trying to kiss me,” she hissed defensively, gripping her mug of tea in a white-knuckled hold. The ceramic was going to crack if she kept it up, and she forced herself to relax a little too. “But I could have told you to stop,” she admitted. “And I didn’t.”

“You wanted to kiss me then?” Theo asked. 

She narrowed her eyes and refused to look at Malfoy. “Yes,” she said quietly. There was hardly any point in hiding it at this stage.

Theo’s lips twitched slightly. He looked quietly pleased about that, though the look stopped just shy of smug. “And now?”

“What kind of question is that?” she asked hotly. “Did you just frog march me out here to interrogate me and make me uncomfortable?”

“No,” Malfoy said, cutting in. “Hermione,” he went on, and she nearly dropped the mug at his use of her first name. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard Malfoy say it, but never once had he uttered it in  _ that  _ tone of voice. “Hermione, we don’t want to make you uncomfortable. That’s the last thing either of us wants. But you can’t deny that there’s... a spark between us. All of us. Surely you’ve felt it by now?”

She pursed her lips. She couldn’t deny the truth of his words and nodded once, the movement tiny. ‘Chemistry’, a muggle would have called it. Here in the world of witches and wizards, it was her magic that had reached for them longingly, and perhaps she’d felt it so strongly because theirs had been reaching back for her in return? Her heart began beating snitch-quick in her chest and she had to fight to keep herself from panting. He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was... could he? Gritting her teeth, she let him continue.

“Theo and I... we’re very much together, and that’s not something either of us is going to change or let go of any time soon,” he said and her heart plummeted through her so quickly that it might have left a blazing hole in the stones beneath her feet at its passage. “But we’ve also noticed that… how each of us feels about you is...” he swallowed thickly and she risked a glance at his face. 

His eyes clouded for a moment, his gaze shuttering, and his body fell utterly still. It passed so quickly though that she wasn’t sure she’d really seen it, but if she’d been pressed to answer, she’d have said he was using occlumency to order his thoughts. A heartbeat later, he continued, voice steady, if a little gruff.

“Well, it turns out that Theo and I have both carried a bit of a torch for you for quite some time, Granger,” he said with an odd half-smirk that fell somewhere between ‘defensive’ and ‘amused’. “Half of that you already knew though.”

She raised an eyebrow, feeling sick from this seemingly endless rollercoaster of emotions.

The last time her insides had felt like this, she’d been clinging to the back of a half-starved dragon and lurching through the skies above London. “So... what… You’re saying you both want to try out some fantasy and share me in bed? Is that it?” she asked, voice and temperature rising hand in hand. “Because if that’s what this has all been — just some ruse to get me into bed with you or something — then you can bloody well forget it.”

Her shock and revulsion at the idea must have shown on her face because Theo turned ashen and Draco looked appalled.

“That’s not it at all, Hermione,” Theo blurted, scraping his hand through his hair. “Fuck. You think that’s —” he cut off abruptly as Draco laid a pale hand on his thigh to silence him.

“I can see why you’d think that, Granger,” he said, voice eerily calm and devoid of emotion. He was definitely occluding actively, even as he spoke. Was that how Snape had kept everything inside his head from Voldemort’s notice? How Narcissa had lied to Voldemort’s face? Snape must have been better at hiding that he was occluding than Draco was, even if Malfoy was as powerful as Snape had been. 

Malfoy continued on, oblivious to her brief mental tangent. “I can see why you’d think that, given how callous I’ve been towards you and your friends in the past, and my reputation as… a bully at best, and a Death Eater at worst. I know you have little reason to trust me, but please believe me in this at least: this is not some idle fantasy of ours. We have both come to care very deeply about you and your happiness.”

“Just say what you mean, Malfoy,” she said. “Spit it out.”

He drew in a long breath through his nose and she suspected that he was using the gesture to mask another bout of occlumency. Was he really nervous enough that he thought it would get in the way of what he had to say?

“We would like to offer you a relationship with us. Both of us. Not as some… ‘bit on the side’ —” he spat those last words out as if he’d got doxy venom on his tongue “— but as an equal. However, I can see how the concept might be off-putting or unconventional to your eyes.”

“Both of you?” she whispered, looking intently from one to the other.

Theo nodded. “Like Draco said, we’re not interested in... anything quick or insincere. We’ve talked about it between us. Extensively. We both think you’re brilliant and beautiful, and spending time with you this term has been...” he glanced at Draco.

“... beyond wonderful,” he supplied shyly, fingers tightening briefly on Theo’s thigh. “I couldn’t believe it at first when you stopped reacting to the way I lashed out at you. As always, I kept trying to push you further and further away, and that only seemed to make you more determined to get through all my defences...” He shrugged and said weakly, left palm open, right still on Theo’s leg, “I don’t have any more defences left, Granger.”

She had to offer him a small, reluctant smile at that. It definitely held some truth - his quiet, sullen reticence  _ had  _ only made her more determined. As for his final admission, she tried to shelve that to address later. 

“You testified on my behalf this summer, and I’ve never been more stunned in my whole life. I had no idea that you of all people would be prepared to stand up and be a character witness in court... for me.” His eyes shone again like moonlight on silver and he blinked rapidly a few times. Theo’s fingers hooked around Draco’s and he squeezed him reassuringly, but he remained silent to let Draco speak. “When you stepped out to speak, I nearly passed out. I thought I was doomed. With a single sentence, Granger, you could have put me away in Azkaban for life.”

His sharp cheekbones and pale skin made him look suddenly haunted and frightened, despite the now-obvious occlumency. She wished he didn’t consider it a necessity, but she wasn’t about to interrupt him and demand he wear his heart on his sleeve just for her benefit. 

“You didn’t know I’d been called in as a witness?” she asked instead. 

He shook his head. “They never announced who the witnesses would be. First Potter came out and I nearly laughed, but he said his bit about what happened at the Manor —” He turned vaguely green at that, but ploughed on “— when I refused to identify him and gave him back the wands…” He blew the tension and obvious nausea out, puffing his cheeks. “All you had to do was bring up… well, any number of things, but…” his throat bobbed as he swallowed and then forced himself to meet her eyes. Again, the openness of his expression, the vulnerable honesty in his gaze, took her breath away. 

The word engraved on her arm throbbed beneath her blouse but she refused to acknowledge it. Especially now, in front of Draco when he was being so willingly vulnerable and open. “Your parents’ ideology was not your fault, Draco,” she said. 

The most minuscule of twitches hinted at a smile on Draco's lips, and he took a deep breath. “You made me question all of it, and I hated you for it, Granger,” he admitted. “I really, genuinely hated you for years.”

“That, at least, didn’t escape my notice, Malfoy,” she said wryly, sipping from her mug to diffuse the tension. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I…” he scrubbed his left hand over his face, his right still in Theo’s grasp. He looked ruffled and tired when he dropped it back down to his lap. With a tiny, disbelieving shake of his head, he continued. “I’d been raised to believe that  muggleborns were… inferior in every way to us -” to  _ purebloods _ . The word remained unspoken but resounded deafeningly in the silence all the same “- little better than… savages, you understand? And then there you are, a  muggleborn , excelling beyond anything I’d ever been brought up to expect.” He added with a little sardonic, self-deprecating sneer, “You even beat  _ me _ , Granger, in almost every class.”

She snorted and took a long drink of her tea. “Imagine that.”

“Exactly. And not only that, but you did it so easily! Or at least, you seemed to. Everything came naturally to you —”

“— except flying,” she interjected pointedly, recalling that first disastrous flying lesson when her broom had barely even shuddered at her command while Malfoy and Harry had zoomed around like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Both Theo and Malfoy snorted at that. “Yes, alright. I’ll admit that you’re terrible at that. But… you quite literally blasted the foundations of my most fundamental beliefs right out from underneath me, and I had no idea how to deal with that.”

She sighed. “So you lashed out at me.”

He nodded. “I’m so sorry.” After a pause in which no one spoke, he added in a hoarse rasp, “I owe you everything.”

“Malfoy —” she began but he looked up sharply and his expression was suddenly so fierce after being so carefully blank for so long that she shut up immediately. 

“Granger, I do. I owe you everything. Not just my freedom from a sentence in Azkaban, but… the fact that you made me see things differently… You. You did that. I know I’ve still got a lot to work on, but if I’d never met you, I would never have been forced to confront the way I view the world. I’d have stayed a narrow-minded, pureblood bigot and would probably have ended up like my father…”

She took a deep, long breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t believe that,” she said quietly. “No, hear me out —” she said, raising a hand as he opened his mouth to object. “I’m not the only muggleborn in this school, Malfoy, and you’re anything but stupid. You have eyes that work and a fantastic brain capable of incredible leaps of intellect.” She heard Theo hum in fond agreement. “Maybe I was just the catalyst that made it happen sooner… but you’d have figured out that your parents’ views are barbaric and wrong, with or without me. I know that, and I’m sure of it.” 

Malfoy worried his bottom lip with his teeth and stared at her before looking away, his eyes glassy and on the point of tears, though he refused to let them spill. 

When no one said anything more, Hermione ventured, “So… just how do you envisage the three of us working then?”

Malfoy didn’t look up, and it was Theo who took over. “However we want it to work,” he shrugged easily. “You’ve already admitted today to having feelings of some kind towards me, and Draco and I have talked about it. So long as you’re alright with knowing that I’m not breaking up with Draco, and that he’s ok with me being with you, then that side of things could work out, but…” he shot a look at Draco, who was clenching his jaw so hard she thought his teeth might shatter. 

Hermione had to admit that she didn’t like the sound of Theo’s suggestion at all. She shook her head. “That wouldn’t feel right to me,” she grimaced. “With just you, it’d feel like I was… pulling something apart somehow.”

“Yeah, but…” Theo said, casting Draco another look. Draco wasn’t looking at either of them, and he’d gone white as parchment again. 

“Draco?” she asked, adjusting the mug in her fingers just for something to do. “You… You said you carried a torch for me… Did you mean it, or…?”

At that, his head snapped up and he glared at her. “Of course I meant it, Granger!” he snapped. 

She smiled in the face of his vitriolic outburst, like a wolf baring teeth in an empty snarl, and then began to laugh. “So you do want to be involved in this… what… triad? Trio?”

His brows darkened into a scowl. “Of course I do,” he said. “But not if you don’t want me.”

She drew up short at that, blinking. “What makes you think I don’t want you?” she asked, one eyebrow rising. Had she been that oblique in her admiration of him? She thought she’d been fairly obviously mooning over him for weeks, but apparently he’d not noticed, or had deliberately convinced himself otherwise. Then again, if she’d misread so much of their interactions over the past few months, then it was possible that he could have done the same…

He looked up at her cautiously through his silver lashes and blinked. “Are you saying… you do want me? The way you want Theo, I mean?”

The sight of the two of them sitting on the bench, both gazing up at her with huge eyes and matching, slightly slack-jawed expressions would have been enough to swell anyone’s ego, but the hopeful looks on their faces just made her think of a pair of puppies, and she nearly giggled. Letting the laughter fill her eyes at least, she nodded. “I do like you, Draco. Rather a lot. Both of you equally, though in slightly different ways, I think. And not just as friends. You have no idea how handsome you both are… Well, you probably do actually, but… Oh Merlin, I’ve been so confused about how I feel about you for weeks now.” 

The tension in Theo broke into a husky, amused chuckle and he clutched Draco’s hand again, bringing it up to his lips and kissing his white knuckles. It was an impulsive gesture of relief and hope and affection; an outpouring like a flood relief channel in a dam fit to burst any moment. 

She turned away a little bit and paced back and forth before continuing. When she returned to them, she saw the way their fingers were still clenched so tightly they might have risked fracturing the bones in their hands, but neither showed any sign of loosening their grip. 

“I thought… oh I don’t know what I thought… I thought maybe it was because there was finally nothing else to distract me, and maybe my hormones had kicked in at last, and I was ready to fling myself at anyone all of a sudden… but then I stopped and thought about it for half a second and realised that no, it’s just you two. I don’t feel like this for anyone else. You’re so different from each other, and yet you’re so similar in so many ways, and…” she broke off and huffed a sigh. “Merlin, I felt so guilty about it all.”

Theo’s face softened further and he shuffled away from Draco along the bench, breaking their handhold at last. “Come here,” he said. “And for the love of all the founders, please have something to eat before you pass out…”

She snorted and came to sit between them.

Draco picked up the platter from beside him and offered it to her. His hand was shaking. She plucked a small vine of grapes from one side but didn’t eat, holding them between her fingers in her lap. “Is this… Is this a normal thing for wizards? I mean… a polyamorous relationship in the muggle world is unfortunately considered extremely unusual - at best - in many circles, especially by older folks.”

Theo shrugged. “It’s been more common in pureblood families than half-blood, as far as I’m aware, but I don’t actually know anyone who's in a triad.” He ran his fingers through his curls again and went on. “With purebloods, I guess it was more acceptable because of a number of factors, but - mostly because we’re all so inbred - a lot of families have trouble… uh, conceiving. So… in some circumstances, it’s not unusual to combine the magic of more than two people in a relationship to strengthen the bond in an attempt to produce an heir. Usually it’s two witches and one wizard, but it’s not entirely unheard of to have this dynamic. It is still a bit… unusual though,” he conceded. 

She looked dubiously between the two of them and then blurted, “I’m not about to have babies with you…”

Both of them burst out laughing and the tension which had been roiling around the courtyard since the moment they’d entered suddenly shattered.

“Merlin, we’re not asking you to marry us, Granger,” Malfoy said, though his words were a bit clipped. 

“…Yet,” Theo grinned playfully and Malfoy hurled a pain-au- chocolat at his head, which only made him laugh harder as it rolled away down the cloister. “Honestly though,” Theo added when he looked at Hermione. “We are serious about this, but maybe not  _ babies  _ serious right now, ok? No need to freak out. We just want to get to know you better, and just… be with you. If you’re up for anything more - whatever that is - then…” he shot Draco a look over her head, “… so are we.”

Hermione turned from one to the other and said, “You really have talked about this, haven’t you?”

“Mn,” Draco nodded. 

Her cheeks suddenly flushed hot as she recalled their steamy little session in the library, and she bit her lips. When Theo had said ‘anything more’, she finally knew exactly what he’d meant. Good Godric she’d been oblivious. How could she have been so oblivious! Her cheeks burned and she sorely wished that apparition was possible on Hogwarts grounds because she would probably have vanished right there and then in embarrassment.

“What?” Theo asked archly. “You’ve gone terribly pink, Hermione…”

“When you say you’ve talked about this, that includes talking about having sex with all three of us, doesn't it?”

Now it was Malfoy’s turn to choke on his coffee and turn crimson, but, predictably, Theo just laughed. “ _ Whatever  _ brought that bright mind of yours to that conclusion, Hermione?” he asked with overwrought innocence. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” she crooned, turning to stare straight at Malfoy. “Maybe it was something about the way you came in the library after Theo mentioned my name…”

Theo crowed beside her, rocking back on the bench and tipping his head back while Malfoy’s shirt collar smoked gently under the heat of his blush. Slightly chagrined at just how embarrassed Malfoy was too, she reached out with her left hand and brought her fingertips to his sharp chin. It was probably the only part of his face that wasn't currently an extremely fetching shade of pink. He flinched slightly as her fingers connected with him, almost as if he didn’t dare believe she would willingly reach out and touch him, but he let her turn his face towards her easily enough. 

“Granger,” he whispered, his eyes flitting to look back and forth between hers before descending to rest on her lips. His whole face was a disbelieving query. 

With a smile, she leaned closer and kissed him. 

For a heartbeat, Malfoy didn’t react. 

It was like kissing a statue, but a shudder ran through him a second later and he exhaled through his nose in a rush. Draco came to life rather delicately beneath her kiss, his eyes fluttering shut with a deep, guttural moan, his hand moving to cup her jaw in his long, trembling fingers. He inhaled slowly while he kissed her, deepening it just enough that he bit her lower lip gently between his teeth before drawing back, breathless, chest heaving. 

Finally, he opened his eyes. 

They shone like poured mercury, and glistened with emotion as he regarded her. She smiled and he tentatively, dazedly, returned the gesture. 

“Does that answer your question, Malfoy?” she murmured. She wanted him. Gods, did she want him. 

He swallowed and then, very slowly, nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They've still got more to talk about, but it's a start... What do you think? Was it what you'd hoped for? Let me know!


	18. Aftermath - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Draco, Theo, and Hermione's chat in the cloisters. They share a little more closeness, and upon re-entering the castle, are spotted by Ginny...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Cashmere's venomous tentacula here. Your comments have allowed me to gain sentience, and I'm now posting this on Cashmere's behalf, because they're too happily overwhelmed by your reactions to the last chapter to funtion. Still. 
> 
> They asked me to say that this is a part two to the last chapter. Soon we'll see Draco flying (and in his quidditch kit!), and the Gryffindor-Slytherin match is coming up too... Things will get steamier between the three of them gradually, since they've still got some things to work through, but we're not going for mega-drama here. There will be some plot too, so kudos to you if you remember the crumbs dropped much earlier. 
> 
> Other than that, before I sign off, I'd like to thank you on behalf of Cashmere for your lovely comments and continuing enthusiasm. I get cuddles and doxy venom every time someone leaves a nice comment, and as a venomous tentacula, I can tell you that that literally is the best, so thank you. 
> 
> I'll go and pat Cashmere on the head now and make sure they're stocked up with caffeine for when they finally come back to life. x

She leaned back from Draco’s lips and laughed. “Good.” 

His expression was caught between that of someone who had been slapped in the face and someone who had been told the best news of their life; at the same time. 

“Draco?” she asked. As she regarded him, he offered her a dazzlingly brilliant smile. It lit up his whole face, changing it from icy and stern to open, and gloriously happy for a few heartbeats before he began to blush and looked away. 

Theo nudged her in the ribs and said, “I don’t think I’ve seen him smile like that since Narcissa dearest bought him his first broom for Christmas when he was six, Hermione.” 

Merlin, she felt light and almost giddy. “Do I take that as a compliment?” she asked archly, still chuckling. “And no innuendos about being ridden. It’s far too soon for that, and I know you’re more than likely to make one anyway,” she added quickly with a pointed finger at Theo, whose eyes just sparkled innocently before he closed them and leaned back against the stone wall behind him. 

“Oh Hermione,” he exhaled, spine sagging. “You have no idea how much stress we’ve both been under.” 

She raised an eyebrow and sat back against the wall to join him, steadying her tea with one hand. “I know I’ve been kind of oblivious, but I think I have some idea, Theo. I’ve been going slowly mad all term, wondering if fancying two guys who are already in a relationship with each other is morally reprehensible at the very least.” 

Without opening his eyes or raising his head from the wall, Theo offered a lopsided smirk that fleetingly showed a canine before relaxing his face again. “Meanwhile Draco and I were wondering if a Gryffindor would ever stoop to kissing a Slytherin. We checked Hogwarts: A History, you know? There’s no record of it ever having happened in the entire history of the school…” 

Hermione thwacked him lightly in the chest with the back of her hand. “Hogwarts: A History records much more important things than who’s snogging whom, Theodore Nott. I would know. It’s my favourite book and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read it.” 

“Uh-oh, I got my full name,” he said to Draco over the top of Hermione’s hair. “I can’t be in that much trouble already…” 

Draco still hadn’t moved or spoken since she’d kissed him, and she reached over for his hand with her spare one and tentatively rested her palm over his where it had fallen to lie palm-down and quiescent on his thigh. “Draco?” she asked. “You alright?” 

“Mmm,” he hummed. His silver eyes still looked a little glassy, but they had regained their intensity, and the blush was gone too now. He swallowed and cleared his throat, blinking a few times. 

Theo leaned forwards and touched Hermione’s shoulder gently. “Give him a minute, love. He’s been fantasising about that happening since third year.” 

Draco’s eyes narrowed dangerously at Theo and Hermione giggled, “Third year?” 

“Yeah,” Draco said in a hoarse croak. 

“But I broke your nose in third year…” 

“Yeah.” 

Theo laughed again. “Who knew all it w-would take to win Draco’s heart would be to break his beautiful nose…” 

Draco levelled Theo with a look and said dryly, “You may have a point. If I recall correctly, you nearly broke my nose as a child, racing broomsticks around the gardens at the Manor…” A heartbeat after he’d finished that sentence, his already pale skin turned grey and he shot Hermione a wide-eyed look, laced with panic. 

She smiled and squeezed his fingers. “It’s ok, Draco. I… I’m not going to shatter if you mention your family home, or your parents… I…” she paused and pursed her lips before continuing. “I actually worked through a lot of what happened to me with a therapist in Diagon Alley this summer. I’ve got a long way to go, but it really helped. A lot. You can say Bellatrix’ name, and you can talk about Malfoy Manor.” 

There was a load of stuff she still had to untangle, but those at least were at least topics should could bring up without breaking out into a sweat. She was anything but happy talking about what had happened to her, but at least she was coming to terms with it. She wondered if Draco would ever think about seeing someone in a professional capacity, and decided that however good for him it might be, he probably wouldn’t. At least not yet anyway. 

Draco still looked vaguely green. “I’d rather not mention my aunt’s name if I don’t have to,” he said gruffly. “But I’m glad you… I… I mean… I’m glad you’ve been able to… you know…” He didn’t meet her gaze as he spoke, but he didn’t need to. 

Hermione began to run her thumbs idly over his knuckles. A moment or two later, Draco let out a harsh exhale and she glanced up to find that he’d closed his eyes and was now mirroring Theo by leaning his head back against the stonework of the castle while she doodled idle circles over his knuckles. “You know…” she said, aiming for coy but falling a little short due to a sudden surge of self-consciousness, “I… I really love your hands, Draco. You’re terribly distracting in Potions…” 

“That why you can’t brew a decent draft?” he asked without bite. 

She laughed. “No, but I’d like to pretend it was. I’m just not as intuitive at it as you are.” 

“Neither’s Theo,” he said, eyes still closed. His consonants had gone soft and there was a slightly blissful slur to his words now. “He’s all Arithmancy and calculations.” 

“You like that?” she asked as she noticed it, and he nodded. 

From beside her, Theo chuckled. “Oh Draco, I’m going to have so much fun watching Hermione discover all the things that make you soft.” He paused for effect and then added, “And hard.” 

“Granger makes me hard just by being there,” Draco smirked without missing a beat. “Though don’t let that stop you,” he offered in her direction. 

Hermione found another laugh bubbling up inside her, and when she set it free, Theo looked at her curiously. “What?” he asked. He still hadn’t really touched her, and with her hands occupied with tea and Draco’s knuckles, she couldn’t initiate. 

“I’m just thinking how much easier this all would have been if we’d brought it up sooner,” she said. 

Theo agreed by way of a bob of his head, but then said, “Yeah, but we wouldn’t have got to know each other first. You’ve had the chance to see how different Draco is, and you and I have had some real heart-to-hearts on patrol as friends first. I think… I dunno… I think it happened the way it was supposed to. Even if the pair of us have spent every private waking minute either with blue balls or getting each other off in frustration…” 

She let go of Draco’s hand and smacked Theo again lightly on his chest. 

“Violent, aren’t you?” Theo snorted. 

Instead of answering, she brought her hand up to the side of his face and ran her fingers up through his hair, starting in the shorter hair above his ear and going round to the back of his head in one smooth motion. Theo melted, all the playful banter leaving him, and he let out a long, low groan, eyes rolling shut. “Fuck,” he hissed. 

At the contact, her magic began to reach gradually for him; subtly, but with intent, like a cat prowling along a wall. 

“Fuck, tell me you can feel that?” Theo hissed a second later. 

“My magic?” 

He nodded. “And mine. And… And Drake’s too…” 

“Yours must be pretty intertwined already by now,” she said softly, starting another pass through his thick, curly hair. “What’s that like?” 

“You mean yours isn’t with Potter and Weasley?” Draco interrupted. There was a slight note of disdain when he said their names; an echo of his old sneer. 

She shook her head, her own wild curls springing forward over her shoulders with the movement. “I’ve never felt my magic stir like this. When we were living in that tent for weeks on end, we did develop a kind of affinity for one another, sensing each other’s moods to a certain extent, but my magic has always remained my own. This… This is different. It’s happened a few times…” 

“When?” Theo asked, cracking an eye open. “Don’t stop…” he added when her fingers faltered. 

It was her turn to smirk, and she shook her head but didn’t stop. 

“Careful,” Draco warned in a playful drawl. “Don’t let him get his own way too much. He’s truly unbearable when you spoil him.” 

“I bet you spoil each other all the time,” she countered, scrunching Theo’s hair experimentally in her fingers - simply because she could now - and he bit back a deeper groan. “You’re very sweet together you know?” 

Draco offered her a shy smile and stared out at the little garden. 

Hermione inhaled and did drop her hand back to her lap to cradle the remnants of her tea. It was starting to go cold, so she drew out her wand and warmed it, and noticed the way Draco and Theo both shivered subtly. “You felt that then?” 

They both nodded. If their magic was reacting like that to hers, surely it had to be a good sign? She’d only really heard about it happening after a formal bond had taken place, or if two people had been together for years and years. Molly Weasley’s magic was almost indistinguishable from Arthur’s, according to what she’d told Ginny; the two of them could read each other like an open book, to the extent that they could feel a degree of the other’s emotions through the bond. But they were married. It shouldn't be happening this quickly, should it? 

“I think the first time I really noticed it was when we were all walking up from that evening at Hagrid’s,” Hermione said after a while. 

“When we shared a spell…” Theo said. “I passed a _wingardium leviosa_ over to you and it didn’t even shake. Remarkable really, when you think about it.” 

“We’ve done spellwork together before in Charms,” she said. “I hadn’t felt anything exceptional then.” 

He shook his head, curls jostling softly. “No, but we’ve never done the same spell together in Charms; we’ve only worked in partnership with spell and counterspell. I thought I was drunk when you let your magic slide against mine.” 

“He was hopeless for hours afterwards,” Draco said dryly. 

“Fuck off,” Theo scoffed. “You couldn’t stop talking about how gorgeous Granger’s hair looked in the firelight, like some moping Byronic hero mourning a love he could never have…” 

If Hermione hadn’t been so surprised that Theo - a pureblood wizard - knew who Lord Byron - a muggle poet - was, she might have been a little more bashful that Draco had thought her hair pretty. Instead, she blurted, “You know who Byron is?” 

Theo’s eyes flashed. “Why of course I do, Hermione. I’m offended at your surprise.” 

She shot him a flat look and he laughed. 

“Alright, I have a passing kn-knowledge of some of the key figures of muggle literature - mostly to spite my father if I’m honest- though I’m not sure I’d pass seventh year Muggle Studies… I could quote him at you, but I’d rather not bungle it. Give me some practice…” 

“Fair enough.” 

A natural lull developed in their conversation, but it didn’t feel awkward. They all took a moment to breathe, to adjust to the new state of things, and let it soak into them. 

Some time later, Theo spoke up again. “What are you doing today?” he asked. “I think we should go on a proper date…” 

“I’ve got quidditch practice after lunch,” Draco said regretfully. “Not due to finish til supper. Don't let that stop you two though.” 

“You sure?” Hermione asked. “I don’t want you to feel left out… especially since this is all completely new…” 

Draco offered her a gentle smile and nodded, stifling a yawn. 

“You didn’t sleep much either then,” she murmured. 

“Got more than Theo,” he said wryly, casting silver eyes at his boyfriend. 

Hermione turned to look at Theo again. “Oh?” 

He waggled his eyebrows and said, “Too busy th-thinking about how badly I’d fucked this all up by trying to k-kiss you last night…” 

Something in her chest gave a pang at that and she left her tea mug levitated in the space in front of her and turned to face him so that her back was to Draco and she was almost sitting side-saddle on the chilly stone bench. “I’m really am sorry I flew off the handle like that…” she said. “I just got so freaked out that I’d messed everything up somehow…” 

“It’s not always on you, Hermione,” Theo said very quietly. “In the time I’ve got to know you, I’ve learned that you like to try and take on the entire burden of whatever the current problem is.” 

She swallowed and sat back a little. Did she? 

“It’s a great failing of Potter and Weasley that they’ve permitted that over the years,” he went on. “I’m not about to insult your friends, or claim that I know what it was like for you three, constantly saving the entire wizarding world on a yearly basis, but…” he took a deep inhale through his nose, “… I do know that they’ve taken advantage of you and your immense generosity, time and time again. You may not have noticed, but I’ve seen you in the library until closing time, researching things that are definitely not part of the syllabus, and how many times have they just assumed you’ll pick up the slack…?” 

She bit her lip, her chest roiling with emotions she’d pushed repeated under the rug for years. A fierce desire to defend her best friends surged in her but she forced it down again and tried to be rational. She shrugged. “They had their own problems - I mean, someone’s tried to kill Harry at least once a year since he got here, and —” 

“— I’m not saying you were wrong to do it, but I am wondering how many times they offered to help, or if they just assumed you’d pick up the slack…” 

She blinked rapidly, cheeks hot. “They have said thank you to me before,” she said. “I promise. I just… I like to be useful, and I can get a bit carried away…” 

“Ok,” he said gently. “I guess I’m just trying to say that you don’t have to take responsibility for everything… like last night,” he said, sitting up a little and shuffling so that he could hold her hand. His palm was warm and soft; the hand of a scholar. “I’m the one that pushed, Hermione. And I’m the one who could have been a little clearer about all of this. Draco was never going to initiate anything with you, on account of your history, so I knew it was all up to me. Having got to know you better this year, I should have been more explicit. Though…” he added with a wry grin that brought out his dimples, “I kind of thought I had been when I said that we’d be up for anything with you…” 

“When did you say that?” she asked, wracking her brains. “Oh, you mean… on patrol that time? After Peeves nearly scared the life out of me… when you told me a bit about Draco…” 

“Mmm.” 

“I kind of thought you were just being kind,” she said. She turned to look at Malfoy, who had an odd expression on his marble face. “Were you angry about him telling me that?” 

“Initially,” he said. “But I think I was more embarrassed than I was angry with him.” 

Draco then stood and stretched languorously, the crisp white shirt stretching flat across his shoulders before falling back into its slightly rumpled state again when he relaxed. She and Theo watched him pace a little, on the pretence of shaking out the stiffness in his legs from sitting on a cold bench, and then Hermione looked sidelong at Theo. 

She placed her palm on his thigh and he smiled, closing his hand atop hers. 

“I’m sorry I made you feel like it was your fault,” he said in a rough whisper, bowing his head a little to look at the spot where their hands touched. 

“You didn’t. Not really. I’m very good at convincing myself of things, you know?” she said, moving again and bringing her forehead to touch his. “I can be very stubborn.” 

They were close enough to share a breath in the cool autumn morning, and they stayed like that for a long time while Malfoy paced idly along the length of the small cloister and back again. 

Finally, Theo sighed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We should return the cups and plate to the hall,” he said, standing and clearing his throat. 

He offered Hermione a hand up from the bench, which she took, and when he made to pull back, she tightened her fingers around his. He inclined his head, looking amused and pleased, and squeezed her back. Her forehead was still tingling where he’d kissed her, and she couldn’t stop smiling. 

“It’s going to be a nice day,” she said, glancing up at the square of sky just visible above the cloister garden. “We could watch Draco train for a bit this afternoon?” 

Draco turned to her and raised his eyebrow. 

“What?” she asked. “And do you have any idea how attractive that is?” 

Apparently he didn’t, because he tilted his head curiously, though he didn’t lower his eyebrow. 

Theo leaned in and said in a stage whisper near her ear, “You mean the eyebrow thing?” 

“Yeah,” she said in an equally audible hiss without taking her eyes off Draco. “How does he do it?” 

Draco laughed briefly and came a little closer. “Practice, Granger. I’ve had years to practise looking scathingly sceptical when you and your friends have given me endless sources of exasperation. And you hate quidditch…?” 

She returned his laugh with one of her own and stepped forward to put her hands on his hips. His breath caught visibly at the contact, but she didn’t give him the chance to back away or doubt himself. She cupped his sharp jawline in her right palm and kept her left on his slightly jutting hip bone. “You’re too beautiful to look so cynical all the time, Draco,” she whispered. 

Without a flicker of warning, Draco’s hands flew to her hair and he gripped her hard, rearing close to her and crushing a kiss against her lips that left her dizzy. A hand at the small of her back that could only have been Theo’s steadied her while Draco poured his heart out into that kiss, his eyes closing, his hands scrunching her hair almost painfully. It was the most searing kiss she’d ever had, and she opened herself to him, feeling the cool tingle of his magic meeting hers. The rush of it was enough to make her moan. 

In that moment, she realised the meaning of his kiss to Theo the night before: _I’m not angry with you. You can do what you like and still be mine. You can be hers and still be mine_. The impact of her realisation almost made her cry. Brightest witch of her age, and she was more than capable of being an idiot. 

Hermione kissed Draco back with everything she had, clinging to his narrow hips as much for balance as to hold herself close to him. Finally he drew back, breathless, and stared at her. His pupils were huge, leaving barely a sliver of silver around the edges, and his lips were puffy and kiss-swollen. That lovely flush was also just starting to make itself known again across his cheekbones. 

“I have to agree with her, love,” Theo said to Draco with a chuckle in his voice. “You really are too beautiful.” He hadn’t taken his hand from her back, and he rubbed a quick circle there before drawing away. “Come on, before we move more quickly than we probably should, given everything…” 

Draco blushed bashfully but held out his hand to her, raising an eyebrow. 

With a smile, she slid her fingers into his while Theo collected the plates and her tea mug which was, miraculously, still hovering behind her. The charm broke when he touched it, and he added it to the stack in his hand. The food on the plate was mostly untouched, and as they passed the abandoned pain-au-chocolat that Draco had hurled at his head earlier, Theo stooped and picked it up. 

They reentered the castle together, with Hermione’s hand still in Draco’s, and had just turned towards the Great Hall to return the crockery to the table, when Ginny’s voice rang out. 

“Hermione! There you are, I’ve been —” her words died in her throat when she saw that Hermione and Draco Malfoy were holding hands. “Hermione?” 

Draco instantly let go of her as if he’d been burned, and she turned to look at him with a scowl. “Remember what I said about not being ashamed?” she said. 

“Remember what I said about you being so bloody fierce?” Draco shot back acerbically, defensively. “We’re not all as brave as you are, Granger.” 

“Oh,” she said. It hadn’t occurred to her that he’d let go of her because he was wary of Ginny’s reaction. She took a breath and said, “I’m sorry. Well, it looks like I’ve got some explaining to do…” She glanced from Draco to Theo. “Shall I meet you at the quidditch pitch after lunch? What time do you start?” 

“Half one,” Draco said. “But you really don’t —” 

“I know,” she said with a smile. “I’m not going to stay all afternoon because I really do hate quidditch, but it’d be nice to watch you fly all the same. Ginny’s right; you are brilliant.” 

“Careful,” Theo said with that glint back in his blue eyes. “Or he’ll show off and hurt himself.” 

“He’s got an important match to play next weekend,” she said sternly. “He’ll do no such thing.” 

“He’ll try not to,” Draco said dryly. “C’mon,” and he brushed past Theo into the Great Hall. 

Hermione crossed to Ginny, who had been observing the whole interaction in much the same way that someone might observe baby dragons playing in the wild; warily but with some amusement. 

“Hermione?” she asked, eyes wide. “What’s going on? Last I saw of you yesterday you were marching out of the hall after dancing with Theo. I thought he’d done something to upset you…” She paused, eyes going to the hall where Theo and Draco had just disappeared, presumably pausing there to give the two girls some space. “And now you’re holding hands with Draco Malfoy?” 

“Long story,” Hermione said. “Have you had breakfast already?” 

“Not hungry,” Ginny grinned immediately. Her eyes were alight with curiosity and the anticipation of the delicious scandal she was about to hear from her friend. Combined with her tentative acceptance of Theo and Draco at the feast the previous evening, Hermione took that as a good sign. “Gryffindor common room. Now,” Ginny said, gripping her wrist with the strength of a quidditch player. 

Taking a deep breath, Hermione nodded, and allowed her friend to tug her up the Grand Staircase. With a final look over her shoulder, she saw Theo and Draco reemerging from the hall, watching her go. 

“Good luck,” Theo mouthed melodramatically, and she rolled her eyes. 

It was going to be fine she suddenly realised, and with that thought, she laughed almost all the way up to Gryffindor tower. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the part two, and aren't worried about Ginny's reaction. I don't think it's spoilers to say that you needn't be. There's a steamy-ish bit with Theo on the horizon, and we'll see Draco in his quidditch gear soon! 
> 
> If you have any questions or want to leave comments elsewhere, you can find me on Tumblr at [coffeestainsandcashmere](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com//). I'm a very small blog on there, but I always welcome anons and inboxes if you feel like it. I have got three prompts sitting in there which I've not had the time to write, but if there's something you want to know about my take on the characters, or about the story in general, or about anything really, do get in touch!


	19. A Stolen Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments - here and on Tumblr. I'm sorry for not getting around to this sooner but things have been genuinely bonkers for me and I've not had the time or the spoons to dedicate to this story. It means the world to me and the tentacula that you cared enough to comment and encourage me, and I hope you like this chapter. It's a bit of a tease though... Sorry??? Hope you enjoy.

“I thought there was something going on between the three of you at the feast last night, and I told you afterwards that they were interested,” Ginny said the moment the door to their dorm banged shut behind them. “I bloody told you! Tell me everything!”

Hermione took a deep breath. “I know you haven’t exactly been their  _ keenest  _ champion,” she began carefully, her eyes drifting towards the lattice window, “And with good reason, what with Fred’s death, and Bill and Fleur’s wedding, but… well… you listened when I told you they'd changed, and I’m really grateful you did. Eventually.”

Ginny tucked her hair behind her ear. “I could probably have been a bit more, uh… open-minded, but after our fight about it, I did start to notice them around the castle…” She sighed. “Old Draco would never have let a third year hex him and get away with it, but —”

“— wait, what?” she interrupted, horrified, eyes going wide.

“Don’t worry,” Ginny scoffed. “I gave them detention for a month for attacking another student… It’s apparently quite commonplace. I’ve made a note to bring it up at the next prefects’ meeting. But we’re not talking about that now. We’re talking about you and Draco Malfoy  _ and  _ Theodore Nott!” 

Hermione scowled but forced herself to let it go for now. She could bring it up with Draco later anyway. Bloody hell, if he was being hexed on a regular basis, no wonder he looked so tense all the time. Hot bile rose in her throat but now was not the time for that. “Well,” she said carefully, “Like I said… I’ve been getting to know them over the course of the term, and… I’ve thought them attractive - objectively speaking - for a while now. But after I discovered they were  _ together _ , I didn’t think I had any chance of anything happening. Turns out… they’re open to a polyamorous relationship… so…” she ran her hand through her curls and began to plait her hair, more for something to do than to get it out of the way. “…  so we’re giving it a go, I guess…” She fixed Ginny with a hopeful look, and waited. 

Ginny worried her bottom lip for a moment, and then eventually asked, “Are you happy?”

With a watery smile, Hermione nodded tentatively. “I think so. Theo’s funny and outgoing, and really bloody smart, Ginny…”

“And the Ferret?”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t keep calling him that forever, you know?”

“I can, and I abso-fucking-lutley will.”

“He’ll only call you ‘Weasel’ or something in retaliation.”

Ginny shrugged. “Let him try. But seriously, what’s a pasty little ferret like him got to offer the brilliant Hermione Granger - besides his admittedly good looks. Tell him I said that and I’ll bat bogey you too, don’t think I won’t!” she added, jabbing Hermione in the shoulder for emphasis. 

Hermione turned and stared at the stitching on the drapes of her four-poster before replying. “He’s… more sensitive than he lets on, and he’s also extremely smart. He’s never come lower than the top three in class - except for sixth year when he had… other pressures on his mind, but even then, he was still in the top ten. He’s quick witted but surprisingly sweet. I can’t tell you the details, but he’s helping a friend with something that’s essentially a lost cause, but even so he’s not given up anyway… and you should see the way he is with Theo, Gin. You wouldn’t recognise that Draco Malfoy without his armour…”

“Not to mention… he looks fucking incredible in quidditch kit…” she added playfully. “Right?”

“That definitely doesn’t hurt,” Hermione admitted. “What’s it worth not to tell Harry I said that?”

Ginny didn’t rise to that, and instead rocked back a little and drew up her knees to sit cross-legged on the duvet. “So are you sitting with the Gryffindors or the Slytherins for the match next weekend?” she asked. 

“Gryffindors,” Hermione replied immediately. “How could you even ask?”

“And you’ll be cheering for…?”

“Gryffindor, of course,” she huffed. “Just because I’m in a relationship with them, doesn’t mean I’m going to change everything about myself…”

As if Ginny had been looking for that answer, the redhead nodded. “Good. So… Do Ron and Harry know yet?”

She shook her head. “I’ve only known myself for an hour or so, Ginny. And… I think I’d like to wait a while.”

Her friend cocked her head and shot her a curious look. 

“I want to make sure it’s going to last. There will be so much explaining to do, and so much arguing and exposition…” She sighed heavily. “They’ve both assured me they're serious - not just looking to share a witch or anything so crass - but still, there’s always a chance this could go tits-up…” 

Ginny nodded. 

“So… Uh… Who’s going to win on Saturday?” Hermione asked. “Will I be dealing with two moping Slytherins because Gryffindor’s wiped the floor with them, or are they going to be gloating insufferably?”

“Honestly, it could go either way,” Ginny said, sounding tense. “They’ve got a really strong defence this year, but their offence is weaker than ours, but then again, Malfoy’s one of the best seekers Hogwarts has ever had, and I don’t say that lightly. I meant it when I said he’s better than Harry…”

“Harry’s a good flyer, for sure,” Hermione said, “But a lot of his catches were fluke…”

“Hermione!” 

“What? It’s true!” she laughed. “He nearly swallowed his first one…”

They dissolved into banter and laughter, and by lunch, Hermione was satisfied that Ginny was on her side, despite her initial hostility towards Draco. Hermione understood it. The death of a brother wasn’t something you just got over in a matter of weeks and months. Fred’s absence would stay with her forever. There would forever be a gaping hole in her family - and none were closer than the Weasleys - that had been blasted there by a Death Eater’s curse. And Malfoy had been a part of that, directly or indirectly, and the build-up to it had happened over years. 

***

Their first week as an official triad passed relatively uneventfully, and few people noticed anything different. Most of the student body had grown accustomed to seeing Hermione, Theo, and Draco in each other’s company by now, and although a number of people had thought it was strange, most had moved on to more important things. 

The three of them had decided just to take things as they came, but still to move slowly. So far, Hermione had had those first two kisses from Draco in the courtyard, and none from Theo, save for the quick press of his lips to her forehead that same day, but they had shared touches here and there. Draco, she discovered, was particularly partial to holding hands, and would soften significantly if she slid her fingers into his cool, callused palm. Naturally, she did it whenever she could - not that she’d had too many opportunities yet. No wonder Theo was always holding his hand if that was the reaction he got when he did. 

On the Wednesday of their first week together, Hermione and Theo were due to meet at the entrance to the Slytherin Dungeons to begin their patrol, but as Hermione stepped out of the Fat Lady’s portrait, she found Theo already there waiting for her. 

“Evening,” he said with a smile, though he eyed the Fat Lady as warily as if she were a nineteenth-century chaperone or something. 

Hermione slid her hand easily into his and they set off. “Thanks for meeting me here,” she said as they walked the length of the corridor and began their patrol route. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Wanted t-to sur-surprise you,” he said, his stammer unusually slow and sticky that night.

He only tended to stutter like that when he was tired or nervous, and she shot him a quick sidelong look. Catching her at it, he smiled but said nothing. 

“How was teaching tonight?” she asked him as they moved along. 

Reaching a doorway that would take them down a staircase and out onto a corridor that held the Ancient Runes classroom, among others, Theo held it open for her and let her pass through first. “N-Not too bad,” he said, head bobbing slightly on the consonant as it got stuck, turning the sound into more of a hum. “Sorry,” he added. 

“Sorry for what?”

He licked his lips and they began to descend the short, stone staircase together. “NNot a good sp-speech day for me.” 

“Oh,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“I kn-know you don’t,” he chuckled. “I might j-just be qu-quieter than usual.”

“That’s ok,” she smiled as she stepped off the staircase and paused. “You hear anything?”

He shook his head after a moment and they carried on. 

Their route eventually led them to the third floor, and then into the library. They found nothing and no one out of place, though they did spot Peeves rubbing soap into the treads of a stone staircase to make people slip. Instead of confronting him, they let him finish, float off cackling to himself, and then vanished the soap themselves. 

As Hermione cast her ‘evanesco’, she heard Theo whisper his own, and their magic leapt towards each other, intertwining and thrumming at a perfect frequency that left her gasping for a moment. 

Theo laughed softly as he stowed his wand away. “Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” he whispered. 

“Is it like this for you and Draco?”

“Ours kind of doesn't untangle any more,” he said, still speaking softly, hardly articulating his consonants, as if afraid they’d get stuck if he spoke louder. “We haven’t formally made a bond or anything - not like you do at a mmm-marriage ceremony or anything - but we’ve been around each other for so long, and together for a while too now, that he’s always there…” he said, raising his palm to his chest, just above his heart. 

“You mean… You mean you can sense him?”

“Yes and no,” Theo said as they resumed their route and headed for the library a couple of floors down. “It’s like when you’ve got your wand in a holster on your arm. You know it’s there, but you’re not constantly aware of it unless you think about it.”

She nodded. Their own magic was no longer shimmering around the other’s, but she could still feel it, like the lingering taste of a kiss on her lips. “I wonder what it’ll feel like when all three of our magics touch…”

He grinned broadly at her but said nothing. 

The library was empty, but the floorboards still creaked occasionally, and there was always the rustle of pages turning, even without patrons there. Many of the books had a life of their own, and there was one lying open on a table in the study area, idly flipping its pages back and forth. They watched it for a moment before Hermione spoke. 

“I love being in here after hours,” she said, voice still hushed as if it were full of students. 

Surrounding them like the monolithic columns of some ancient temple, the bookshelves stood solid and immovable, groaning with knowledge bound in leather. 

“Do you ever think about just how much knowledge is housed here,” she whispered, gazing around. “You know, it’s said that the Library of Alexandria housed so much knowledge that the whole library took on a kind of sentience itself…?”

“I’d believe that, having spent a lot of time at the Malfoy’s library…” he said. “They came over with William the Conquerer you know, but their family goes way, way back to some of the earliest wizards in Scandinavia.”

“That makes sense,” she said, wandering idly along the floorboards, running her fingers along the bookshelves as she passed. “The Normans are called that - ‘north men’ - because the vikings settled the land there. What’s the Malfoy’s library like?” she asked, pausing and leaning up against a huge table. “I’d imagine lots of ebony book cases and creepy corners…”

“It’s actually quite light and airy,” he said, coming to a halt right in front of her, almost boxing her in with his body against the table. Heat flared in her and her breath caught. He was so tall, and so achingly handsome, with the light from the lanterns dancing along his cheekbones, picking out those cheeky freckles and the slight lopsided quirk to his lips. 

She continued to gaze up at him and her mouth went dry. In the soft, ambient light of the library, illuminated only by a little lamp near the door, he honestly looked like a statue come to life: his tanned skin looked almost like living bronze while his eyes bore straight into hers, dark and enticing. 

He reached slowly, tentatively, for her chin with his finger and thumb, and tilted it upwards a fraction. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “I c-can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to kiss you when it’s just been us and the empty castle at night…”

She swallowed and he leaned closer. 

“May I?” he asked in a whisper and she nodded faintly, heart hammering. 

Closing the distance between them slowly, though not shyly, Theo just barely brushed his lips against hers, teasing. 

She stretched taller, though still leaning against the table, seeking more, begging for more from him, and slowly - achingly slowly - he gave it to her. 

His hands skimmed her shoulders, gripping her briefly before going to her middle. When he tightened his hands around her soft waist, he kissed her harder, moaning, biting at her lower lip and sucking until she gasped and drew back, head tipping backwards. Seizing the opportunity to kiss at her neck, Theo closed his lips on her throat, only a fraction shy of bruising, raking his teeth over her until she shuddered and gasped. It was easy to see why Draco’s throat was so frequently mottled with the evidence of his attention. It was heaven. 

Her hands shot out behind her to steady her and brace herself up, and Theo grabbed her and hoisted her to sit up on the table, drawing her thighs around his hips. One hand travelled to her exposed leg and up beneath her skirt, his fingers digging into the muscle and making her yelp at the pressure. Breathing hard, she gasped, “Theo!” 

“Mmm?” he asked, not pausing as he kissed his way back up her throat and slid his fingers into her hair before meeting her lips again with his. “Gods, Granger, you’re gorgeous.”

Heat seared through her and she arched her back. Theo stepped closer and she wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling his hardness growing beneath the contact. 

“Stop,” she panted, laughing. “Stop, not here…”

Licking his lips, he took a step back and helped her off the table. “One day, Granger,” he said with a dangerously attractive purr to his baritone. “One day, I will fuck you on a library table…”

Her toes curled at that and she sank her teeth into her lower lip. “I’ll hold you to that…” she whispered and he bit his lip and shook his head, clearly wrestling with himself if the tent in his trousers was anything to go by. 

Her underwear was undeniably soaked though after that, but she made it around the rest of their patrol on marginally unsteady legs. They parted company at the Slytherin Dungeons, Hermione insisting that he didn’t need to walk her back, and she looked up at him. 

“Can I kiss you again?” she asked, feeling suddenly and unexpectedly shy. 

This time when his hands went to her hips, they were gentle and steadying, and when his lips met hers, he sought nothing but contact and closeness. The heat had simmered down, though he was hardly unaffected by it, and when they parted, he smiled, dimples and all. 

“See you tomorrow, Granger,” he said and muttered the password at the empty stretch of stonework. The passageway rippled into existence and he strode down it without looking back. 

While he had Draco to go to, and to ease the inevitable tension that had built up during their patrol, Hermione had only an empty four-poster bed and the safety of some very powerful silencing charms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! I'm around more on Tumblr if you want to say hi or whatever.


	20. Quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hermione finds herself perplexingly focused on the quidditch match for some unknown reason, and ends up in the Slytherin common room afterwards...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smutty times ahoy, folks. And yes, it finally *finally* involves the three of them. They're still kind of taking it slowly, but not *that* slowly... 
> 
> Thanks to those of you who have dropped by my tumblr recently (especially this evening!). I promise this story isn't abandoned! I'm just dealing with a lot and it's slow to update. Hope you enjoy this, and I'm really looking forward to reading your reactions when I wake up tomorrow! (it's 12.30am here now).  
> Also Happy Christmas to those who celebrate, and Happy Holidays and Festive Season to those who don't. May the awful crap we've all been through this year soon be far behind us!  
> Love, Cashmere.

Ginny had taken the news of her new relationship surprisingly well, and on the morning of the quidditch match, when the two girls headed down to the Great Hall, she said, “You should ask your two snakes to join us today.”

“They’re not snakes, and they’re not ‘mine’,” Hermione groused. After a night plagued by terrible dreams of snatchers and the exploding masonry of the Battle of Hogwarts, she was hardly feeling her usual self. “Plus, inviting two Slytherins to join us on the day of an inter-house match is hardly a good idea, Gin…”

Ginny ignored the initial barb in her tone and shrugged. “I’m just saying. Theo’s actually kind of nice - even if he is a massive dork - and Ferret’s honestly growing on me - admittedly like a fungus, but whatever…”

Hermione just rolled her eyes and followed Ginny into the hall. 

Neville and Hannah were sitting at the Hufflepuff table, and as they passed him, he leaned over and offered Hermione a copy of the Prophet, knowing that she liked to read over her morning coffee. 

“Thanks, Nev,” she said, mustering up a small smile. 

The Slytherin table was largely empty, though she spotted Daphne and Astoria eating together, and offered them a smile too when Daphne looked up. There was no sign of Theo or Draco, or any of the quidditch team. She suspected they’d finished early and were already out on the pitch.

Hermione slid into one of the benches and opened the Prophet. Her expression faltered when she saw the headline. 

“What?” Ginny asked, leaning over. “Shit…”

The image at the heart of the page was of a blasted antique shop window in the heart of Paris, a cloud of dust shifting and flowing in the breeze with shards of glinting widow glass scattered everywhere on the cobbled streets. The headline read: Muggle Antique Emporium Raided by Unknown Wizards. Dark Arts Suspected…

She read the article, but it was mostly speculation without much fact, and she made a note to write to Harry and ask him about it - if he hadn’t already written to her. Deciding to put it to one side for the time being, she rolled the newspaper up and focused on her food, though it was hard with her stomach still unsettled from her queasy night of bad dreams and terrible memories. 

As she sat beside Neville in the freezing quidditch stands a couple of hours later, her knee bounced up and down, and the nausea had definitely quadrupled, though for different reasons.

Neville leaned close and yelled above the noise of the crowd, “Are you more worried about Gryffindor losing or Slytherin winning?” His intuitive nature often seemed to surprise her, which she realised was deeply unfair. Neville had always been sweet and sensitive, ever since first year. 

Hermione laughed; though the concepts sounded similar, they weren’t the same thing at all. “Honestly, if Gryffindor loses, Ginny will be devastated. She’s worked really hard to get the team back to where it was in Harry’s hay-day. But if Slytherin win, I’m sure they’ll be insufferable…”

It wasn’t the same without Lee Jordan on the megaphone, but she found herself swept up in the action within moments of the first whistle going. It was odd not to see Ron and Harry out there, but nonetheless, the action had her on the edge of her seat.

The weather was glorious - one of those clear, winter days where the sky goes on forever and the sun bathes everything in a harsh, white light that penetrated even the thickest cloaks, filling her with warmth and excitement as the match progressed. The Slytherins were as brutal as ever, but the Gryffindors gave as good as they got, and after only half an hour, they were neck and neck. 

Malfoy flew like a dream. It was inconceivable to her that he wasn’t showing off, even just a little bit, but even so, she couldn’t find it within herself to be cross with him. He seemed part acrobat and part dancer, part veela, and part daydream as he soared above the rest of them before shooting through the other players with the speed and accuracy of a shuttle on a loom, weaving unerringly through the others before pulling up and circling the pitch, the snitch having vanished again.

The two teams were still drawing after an hour, and Neville elbowed her in the ribs and snickered, “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you pay such close attention, Hermione…”

“Shush, you,” she scoffed, tossing her hair back over one shoulder. “Harry had my full focus when Quirrell was busy hexing his broom!”

Neville just laughed and shook his head, and she turned her binoculars to look at the Slytherin stand. 

Eventually, after scanning row upon row, she found Theo seated at the back, his dark blue eyes fixed on Draco, his teeth worrying his lower lip. At the sight of him looking so focused, so worried, she wanted to kiss him, and the thought struck her completely out of the blue, making her laugh. Her magic surged and she watched him inhale suddenly and look around. His gaze met hers through the binoculars and he laughed, tipping his head back. The sound didn’t carry above the roar of the crowd and the distance between them, but she felt it all the same. Was it really possible that they were starting to share a magical bond already? All evidence seemed to indicate as much, and she was hardly about to try and stop it. It felt incredible. 

Even at that distance, his magic tingled along hers like a handhold, and she gasped. He blew her a kiss and then turned his eyes back to Malfoy, who was spearing down through the players like a gannet to the water, focus pinpointed on a spot near the ground. It was the snitch. He was going for it. If he caught it now, Slytherin would win. Her heart leapt to her throat as she watched Ginny bark orders at the Gryffindor beaters, but it was too late. Malfoy was simply too fast. 

She held her breath, terrified, elated, anxious, disappointed, overjoyed all at once. 

His broom shot like a missile from the blue, and Hermione gasped, grabbing Neville’s hand. 

The pair of them watched as he plummeted from far above Hogwarts’ highest towers right down to brush the blades of grass of the pitch, and then he scooped his right hand out, grabbing at something in the turf. When he rose up again, he flung his hand up, fist closed around the snitch. The commentator — a Ravenclaw she didn’t know — yelled that Slytherin had won, and the stands erupted into a roughly equal mix of boos and cheers. 

Draco did a victory lap, coming to a halt in front of the Gryffindor stands like a knight in the lists, and staring up at Hermione. Adrenaline flooded through her again. She flushed, eyes widening, and he laughed, rocking playfully backwards on his broom as if there wasn’t at least three storeys of empty air beneath him. God, he looked beautiful though, face glowing from the exhilaration of the game, eyes alight, staring straight at her. 

She smiled and he beamed back at her. He blew her a kiss before shooting off again, and she turned and buried her face in Neville’s shoulder, cheeks aflame. Neville cackled and patted her on the head. “It’s ok,” he whispered. “You’ve only got the whole school staring at you.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” she squeaked into the fabric of his jacket. 

He snorted. “I’m kidding. They’ve already moved on. Mostly…”

Tentatively, she eased herself back upright and saw that it was largely true. She took a deep breath and let go of Neville, raising her binoculars and looking back at Theo. The bastard was laughing like a maniac and staring straight at her, even as Draco drew to a halt above him, hopped off his broom in the stands, and grabbed the back of his head, drawing him in for a searing kiss that had people whistling and laughing. 

Theo whispered something into Draco’s ear and he turned across the stadium to look at her. Seeing she was still watching through the binoculars, he mouthed, “Later?” and she nodded, laughing. 

It took forever to clear the stands — to the point that she actually half wished Malfoy would zoom up on his broomstick and carry her down in his arms — but eventually she caught up with Ginny and the team on the grass pitch below. “That was close!” she said, slinging her arm over Ginny’s shoulders. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Fucking Ferret. I can’t even be angry with him. That was an amazing catch.”

She hugged her close for a moment. “You were incredible, Gin. Oliver Wood and Fred and George would have been so proud of you if they’d seen you today.”

“S’pose you’ll be celebrating with the snakes?” Ginny asked without sting. 

Hermione shrugged. “It’s still early days, Gin. I don't know how welcome I’d be in the Slytherin common room…”

Ginny’s eyes refocused on a point just behind her and she snorted through her nose. “Welcome enough I’d say,” she said. “Catch you later.”

And with that she traipsed off with the rest of the team, and Hermione turned to find Theo standing at the base of one of the towers that had been decked in Slytherin colours. 

When she smiled and walked over to him, he opened his arms to her with a questioning raise of his brows, and she laughed. His hands found her hips and he kissed her without hesitation. She moaned and he deepened it just a little, nipping at her lower lip before drawing back, eyelids fluttering. 

“That was quite the match,” she whispered and he nodded. “Where’s Draco?”

“He’ll meet us back at the Slytherin common room,” he said. 

“Us?”

Theo faltered and swallowed. “I… I’d hoped you’d come back with us? He’d love it if you were there when he got back from the debrief…”

She smirked and Theo relaxed visibly. “Lead the way then.”

Hermione slid her hand into his as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and her magic soared. Theo inhaled and looked down at her, grinning, and a moment later, his magic slid along hers in a way that made her giddy. Merlin, but this felt so right. Theo brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed her, laughing softly. 

He tugged her close as they walked from the pitch, surrounded by jubilant fans on all sides, and he kissed the side of her head. “You look so beautiful,” he murmured. 

Surprised, she scowled. “I’m wearing a million layers, Theo.”

“You’re beautiful,” he reiterated. “C’mere,” and with that, he stopped them kissed her again, this time on the lips, and heedless of the crowds around them. 

Laughing, she pulled back and looked up at him. “You’re hopeless.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, not letting go. 

The Slytherin Dungeons were already thrumming with a riotous, raucous party by the time they got there, but as she entered, a few people began to stare, and the double-takes and glances swept through the room until it was almost silent. 

Fear shot through her and she stepped instinctively closer to Theo, who just growled and raised his lip at them in a protective snarl. “What?” he glowered. “Am I not allowed to celebrate with my girlfriend too? Your heroic seeker will be here too any minute, and if anyone has any issues with her being here, they can talk to him.” 

That quickly made people look away, and Theo turned to glance down at her. “You alright? You want to get out of here?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. 

“Our room ok?”

She nodded, and he took a doorway on the right hand side of the dark Slytherin common room before she’d really got a good look at it, and headed up a narrow, dimly lit corridor. He unlocked a door about halfway down and opened it, letting her in first. 

Two beds sat facing each other on opposite sides of a large, stone walled room, with a massive, circular, green rug in the centre, and two matching desks pressed against the wall opposite the door. There were no windows, but green-shaded lamps burned in the corners and created a surprisingly homely glow to the space. 

“Which one’s yours?” Hermione asked, eyeing the pair of carved four-posters. 

“Can’t you guess?” Theo snickered, still in the doorway behind her. 

She stared from the one on the left to the one on the right and weighed up her options. The one on the left looked as if it had never been slept in, with a few books stacked on the Slytherin-green bed linen, but there was not so much as a crease in the pillowcases. Beside it, a chair was covered in uniform that would have fitted either boy. On her right was a bed with the covers tossed carelessly back, the sheets rumpled, the pillows in disarray, and clothes scattered on the floor on either side of it. One of the bedside tables had been dragged from the other side of the room and the bed now had one on either side. It was obvious that they both slept in that bed and left the other empty. 

“You,” she said, pointing at the unused bed on the left, “And Draco,” she said, indicating the one on the right. “Where you both sleep.”

Theo’s grin was positively feral, and he surged forwards, kissing her so hard she found herself backed against the door again, the air driven from her lungs with a grunt of surprise. “I love you, Granger,” he gasped between kisses. “You don’t have to say it back, but I need you to know it.” Her magic swelled again and crackled against his with an intensity that left them both gasping for breath. “Fuck me, you can feel that, right?” he whimpered.

She nodded. 

His teeth raked across her pulse and she gasped, bucking up into him. He was already growing hard against her, and she let her hand trail down between his legs, palming his erection through his trousers until he cursed and backed off half a pace, eyes blown dark, freckled cheeks flushed. 

“What do you want?” he asked in a rasping baritone. 

“You,” she laughed. “And Draco. Will he be long?”

“Knowing you’re pr-probably here already? Hardly. Give him ten minutes.”

In fact, Draco was there in just over five. The pair of them were splayed out on Draco’s bed, Theo on top, his hands tangled in her mass of curls as both of them lay with only their underwear on and Theo ground himself against her thigh with increasingly desperate moans. 

The door opened and Draco stepped in, broom still in hand, quidditch gear only slightly ruffled from the match. “Holy shitting Merlin,” he hissed when he saw them, and closed and locked the door. “You couldn't wait for me?”

“Would you?” Theo asked without raising his head from where he’d been sucking a bruise at Hermione’s pulse point, making her squirm and writhe beneath him. “Look at her.”

“I am,” Malfoy growled. “Both of you.”

“Theo,” Hermione gasped, and he raised his head. His lips were swollen and red from his ministrations to her collarbone and neck, and his freckled cheeks were still pink. A lock of his curly brown hair had fallen across his forehead, and she swept it back fondly, making his eyelashes dance momentarily. 

“Mmm?”

“Undress him?”

Theo’s eyes fluttered again and he drew back, stepping off the bed to reveal the obvious tent in his dark boxer-briefs. “As my lady commands,” he murmured, approaching Draco and taking his broomstick from his fingers to lean it against the wall. Draco let it go, his eyes locked on Hermione. 

“In the name of all that’s sacred,” he whispered. “Look at you, Granger.”

She flushed hot all over, very much aware of his silver gaze on her nearly naked body. Just in case, she’d deliberately chosen the nicest set of underwear she owned — a dusky lilac, silken pair that complemented her skin tone — and it was thoroughly gratifying to see that it was appreciated by both of them. 

Draco mutely let Theo take off his quidditch kit piece by piece, but as she stared, he seemed to grow a little self-conscious. She had no idea why because he looked like an antique marble sculpture, and when Theo revealed the ‘v’ of his hips and lower abs, she actually keened and writhed her hips, sliding her fingers beneath the lace of her underwear. Draco’s eyes tracked the movement and he hissed something at Theo, who also turned to look at her. 

“Fuck me, Hermione,” Theo breathed. “Look at you.”

“Kiss me,” Draco growled at Theo, and he did, grabbing him none-too-gently by the back of his head and crushing a kiss to his lips. The pair of them ground their hips together, Theo’s hands wandering all over Draco’s pale back, while Hermione watched them, a fire kindling between her legs as Theo bucked against Draco and ground his hard cock against his boyfriend’s. 

As her fingertips played over her clit and she gave an involuntary groan, the two of them broke apart at the sound, breathless, eyes blown dark. 

It was Theo who came back to her first, kneeling beside her on the bed. “What do you want, Hermione?”

“I want to watch you both come,” she said without hesitation. She wasn’t quite ready for anything else just yet, but she wanted nothing more than to see them again, so entirely wrapped up in one other. “Please…”

Theo let his head roll back and he groaned as Draco’s fingers tangled in his curls and he tugged his head back roughly to kiss him again, standing beside the bed where Theo was still kneeling. 

“She asked so nicely, Theo,” Draco purred, and Hermione’s eyes went to the bulge in his underwear too and she bit her lip. 

“That she did,” Theo replied. “How do you want us, Hermione?”

“I don’t mind,” she said honestly. “Just… let me watch you? Let me see you again…?”

Theo’s throat worked as he swallowed thickly and he nodded. “Drake? Come here…”

And with that, Theo laid himself down beside Hermine and Draco climbed on top of him, straddling his narrow hips with intimate familiarity. He slid his fingers down the waistband of Theo’s underwear and drew the fabric down to reveal his hard, weeping cock. Hermione gasped, her fingers working inside herself. “You’re both so beautiful,” she murmured. 

“Isn't he?” Draco purred. And with one swift motion, he had gripped the base of Theo’s cock and swallowed him down in a single movement. 

Theo cursed, hips bucking up, his hand reaching across and finding the fingers of Hermione’s other hand. He gripped her tightly and swore again as Draco sucked him off mercilessly. “Oh fuck, Draco!” he yelled as Draco rolled his balls affectionately between his fingers and thumb too. “Oh gods, I’m not going to last if you do it like that… fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ !”

“Both of you,” she found herself whispering. “You’re stunning. I want… I… please…? Draco, make him come…”

Draco paused, his cheeks hollowed where he had Theo’s cock in his mouth, and she groaned. 

“Oh sweet Jesus,” she swore. “Look at you…” Quite which one of them she meant, she wasn’t sure.

He smirked and pulled off Theo. “What do you want, Granger?”

She licked her lips and let her fingers play around her wet, swollen clit for a moment while she tried to think. “Take the both of you in your hands again…” she said at last. 

Draco stripped his own boxer-briefs off and rocked his hips against Theo’s for a moment, his lithe, muscular body rippling beautifully against Theo’s slightly darker skin. “Like that?” Theo asked, reaching between them. 

Hermione nodded, watching, stroking, getting closer and closer as her magic crackled beneath her skin. 

The way Draco’s hips dangled from the end of his lithe spine made her burn with heat inside and out, and her magic suddenly lunged out for them both, branching and splitting between them like forked lightning. She felt the instant they sensed it brushing against their own, and they accepted it with matching expressions of awe. Draco rutted up against Theo and Theo took them both in his hand, making Draco gasp and bow his head forward to rest on Theo’s collarbone. 

Within moments, Draco was fucking freely into Theo’s hand, grinding their cocks together, and as Hermione watched, Draco snarled, “I’m close. I’m…” 

“Come for me, love,” Theo said. “Let her feel you come too.”

And Draco’s magic opened itself to her like a flower and dragged her in, consuming her. Every nerve burst alight and she shattered, her fingers pressed against her clit as she cried out and came hard. Theo yelled, spilling first, and taking Draco with him. The three of them came within a heartbeat of one another, and as Draco gripped the pillow behind Theo’s head and released into his hand with his hips spasming against Theo’s, she felt his magic as if it were her own. It was like nothing she’d ever imagined, and she lost herself to it. 

When she came back down, she turned her head and found Draco slumped atop Theo’s chest, their hips pressed against each other’s, Theo’s hand lodged between them. 

“Fuck me,” Theo hissed. 

“Maybe later,” Draco drawled, pushing himself upright slowly in a way that made the muscles of his arms and chest bunch and ripple invitingly beneath the flawless pale skin. 

Only then did she see the dark tattoo on his left arm. 

She tried to hide where her eyes had landed, but Draco saw it instantly and turned his face away, falling onto the far side of the bed on Theo’s other side and staring up at the canopy of the four-poster above them.

Hermione rolled, pressing her body against Theo’s side and watching as he twitched at the contact. His cock now lay across his thigh, his hand still cradling it gently as it twitched and drooled the last of his release, and his eyes remained softly closed. “Theo?” she murmured, hooking one thigh over his. “You alright?”

“Mmph,” he grunted and cracked an eye open. “Fuck, that was hot,” he added with a shy chuckle. 

She smiled and reached over his chest to Draco’s pale shoulder. She raised her eyebrows questioningly at him and he huffed a nervous laugh. 

“Yeah, Granger,” he slurred softly. “I’m good.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that,” she admitted, only to watch Draco’s already flushed cheeks darken. 

“Not as many as we have, I bet,” Theo laughed, and he kissed her, drawing her down on top of him with a muffled moan. “C’mere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sweats nervously*
> 
> Did you like it? Come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com//) too if you like.


	21. From great heights...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione stays after her evening with the boys, but it doesn't go the way she thought it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for mention of past physical and mental abuse towards a child, witnessing the death of a parent, nightmares, and PTSD. If you're sensitive to those topics, you might want to avoid this chapter. It ends positively, but I thought I'd mention it, and it will be mentioned again in the future. I'll warn for it again when it comes up, but it's not a major plot point. 
> 
> Thank you a thousand thousand times for inspiring me to crack on with this with your beautiful comments on the last chapter - and to those of you who have popped over to Tumblr too, thank you! You brightened my day in immeasurably wonderful ways. Thank you. I hope this chapter isn't too much of a downer, but I need it to be here because I need to show them coming together as a unit in a way that's not just sexual. I have such big plans for them, but that'll have to wait for future stories since it's all beyond the scope of this one. 
> 
> Enough waffling. _*flings this at you and scuttles to hide behind the venomous tentacula, who's in hibernation for the winter* ___

She woke with a start as something smacked her hard in the stomach and she sat upright with a strangled yelp. Beside her, lying on his back, Draco jerked and twitched, and she heard him whimpering softly. A moment later, Theo stirred and sat up with a scowl. He reached for Draco carefully and shook him. 

Draco did not wake. 

He continued to thrash, face contorted, arms occasionally flailing. His shirt clung to his chest and sweat soaked his hairline and his upper lip. In the dim, slightly green light of the room, he looked like a wraith, or someone in the throes of the cruciatus curse. 

“Theo,” she whispered, horrified, eyes still fixed on Draco. 

“Watch yourself,” he muttered, shaking him again. “He doesn’t normally come-to gently…”

Eyes screwed shut, body convulsing, Draco let out a raw, broken  _ scream  _ that seemed to claw its way out of his constricted throat and her heart beat cold at the sound of it. Tendons strained in his neck and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. A second later, his silver eyes flew open and he stared unseeingly at the canopy of the bed, silent except for the rasp of his breath, chest heaving wildly. Immediately, Theo let go of him and spoke his name. “Draco, it’s me. It’s Theo. It was a nightmare. You’re alright.”

She’d never seen such undiluted fear on Draco’s face before, and she leaned a little closer, reaching for his hand which lay quivering at his side. 

“Don’t touch him,” Theo whispered, but as Draco dragged his eyes from Theo’s face to hers, he reached for her, fumbling slightly as his fingers brushed hers.

His skin was cold and sweaty, but she clung to him. “You’re alright, Draco,” she said gently. “It’s alright. We’re here. Theo and I, we’re both here.”

Lucidity crept back into his silver gaze and he blinked. Tears welled and spilled over, and his mouth lurched into a watery smile. “I’m so sorry,” he choked. The frantic look in his eyes told her he was sorry for more than the rude awakening in the middle of the night. 

Her chest clenched in a sudden, excruciatingly sharp pang. “It’s alright, Draco,” she smiled, blinking rapidly and squeezing his hand tightly. “It’s alright. I forgave you a long time ago… for all of it. I forgave you.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he rasped before shifting his gaze back to Theo. “Either of you.”

“Sure you do,” Theo grinned, and although the gesture was sincere, it was a little shaky. “In fact, it actually takes two of us to give you what you deserve - that’s how worth it you are.”

“It’s true,” Hermione smiled, leaning down and kissing his white knuckles where he gripped her hand so hard it hurt. Any harder and his knuckles were going to pop. Or hers.

He blinked again and sighed, tension bleeding from him as he locked everything away again. She’d seen him occlude once or twice before, but the way it drained his face of emotion was eerie. “I think I’m going to have a shower,” he said after a pause. “I’m disgusting.”

“You don’t have to. We can just scourgify you and the sheets, Drake,” Theo said gently, but Draco shook his head. 

“Let me up. I… I want to go and shower anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Theo said, shifting so that Draco could disentangle himself from the sweaty sheets and climb out of the bed on his side. 

Draco grabbed his wand and cast a weak lumos spell with it. In the harsh, blueish light, he moved across the room like a ghost. Then he picked up his towel and dumped his sweat-soaked, long-sleeved t-shirt into their laundry basket on his way past, leaving the room in nothing but his boxer-briefs and with his wand tucked into the towel wrapped around his hips. 

Theo let out a long breath as the door closed. 

The two of them remained still and silent in the wake of his departure before Theo cast a lumos of his own and Hermione flicked a scourgify charm at the sheets to freshen them, and stared at the empty spot where Draco had been lying. “Is it often like that?”

Theo was quiet for a moment, but after a while he flopped back down onto one elbow and sighed heavily, shaking his head. He raked his curly hair back off his forehead but it lolled back again almost immediately. “It’s better now - even more so of late, I have to say - but in the beginning he barely even slept at all.”

“The… ‘beginning’?” she asked hesitantly, already making her own guesses. 

“Apparently they started after the Dark… after… after Voldemort t-took over the Manor, but they got worse and worse as time went by. I think watching his aunt torture you fucked him up in a n-number of ways, Hermione. Until maybe a month ago, he’d wake up at some point every night in a cold sweat. But honestly, it’s… it’s been a lot better since we started hanging around with you.”

“That’s good,” she murmured distractedly, still staring at his empty spot. She shook her head slightly. “He must be carrying around some horrendous trauma after everything he’s been through. And not just what… Bellatrix did to me,” she added with a quick glance down at the scarred words on her arm.

Theo hummed softly in agreement. “He used to use occlumency to shut it all out, but even he could see it wouldn’t be a permanent solution; that locking it all away would only end up with it backfiring on him one day. He still uses it sometimes - did tonight - when it gets a bit much. He’s probably still occluding right now in the shower, putting it all away in little boxes in his brain…” He swallowed and looked at her. “What about you?” he asked apprehensively. 

Thoughtfully, she nodded. “We’ve all come away with scars of one form or another, Theo,” she sighed. “But… I saw a therapist in Diagon Alley this summer and she helped me learn how to come to terms with it all. I think the hardest part is knowing that my parents will probably never recover their memories of me. I’ll never have my mum and dad back. They’ll be out there but they won’t know who I am. I won’t mean anything to them but they still mean the world to me… It’ll… It’ll never be the same. I’ll never have them back.” 

He reached out and held her hand. She hadn’t told him what she’d done, but he didn’t ask for more details. After a pause, Theo said in a carefully neutral tone, “I never really knew my mother.” 

“Oh Theo, I’m so sorry,” she gasped as she was reminded of that fact. “I… That was so insensitive of me.”

“No, it’s fine,” he chuckled. “I mean… I was very young when she… when she died.”

“What about your father?” she asked tentatively, regretting saying that even more. As if one of Voldemort’s most sycophantic Death Eaters would have made a decent father figure. Theo’s face shuttered instantly. 

“I mean…” she said, “From what I understand, Draco’s not on speaking terms with Lucius, but he’s got his mother… Have you got anyone at all…?” 

He snorted at that. “My father is a cruel, vile, sadistic blood-supremacist,” Theo snarled. “And he killed my mother. May he rot in Azkaban.”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

“I mean, not actively,” he said, scratching the back of his head, and Hermione got the sense he regretted the new direction their talk had taken. “He didn’t use an Unforgivable on her or anything, but… he was such a sadistic old bastard to both of us that she just lost the will to live, I think. She killed herself. I… I saw it happen. She turned her wand on herself in the library. I was six.” He took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the walls, eyes unfocused. “He blamed me for it, I think. Beat me so badly with his damned walking stick that I ended up in St. Mungo’s for a week. Always trying to emulate Lucius, he was… with that st-stick.”

“Theo…” she breathed before sliding her arms around his torso. He remained as tall and rigid as a quidditch post before letting out a shaky breath and relaxing against her touch.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and whispered into her hair. “Don’t pity me, Gr-Granger. I didn’t tell you that so you could pity me as well as Draco.”

She shook her head as best she could while sandwiched against his solid chest. “I can tell you that I’m sorry you had to go through that without pitying you, Theo. It’s not the same thing.”

“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat, “What I meant before all that was… I don’t know what that feels like for you. I don’t know what it feels like to have parents that you love and then… not. I’m sorry I can’t empathise with you…”

She drew him close again and he collapsed beneath her over onto his back with a soft ‘oof’ and a chuckle. “What a trio we make, eh?” she laughed bitterly in his ear.

“How about The Silver Trio?” he joked again, and she snorted. “Not quite the Golden Trio, but still… the things we could accomplish…”

Not long after that, Theo carefully rolled over so that he was on the opposite side from where he’d first fallen asleep, and now Hermione lay in the middle, facing him, with an empty space for Draco to slide in easily behind her whenever he was done in the shower. She stroked Theo’s hair until his eyes fluttered closed and his grip on her hand slackened. He’d suffered too, she thought, mulling over what he’d told her about his abusive father and the tragedy of his mother. In their focus on Draco, and partly on her, she’d completely overlooked what he must have gone through. Isolated - however deliberately - Theo had had real damage inflicted on him as well. He was just better at covering it up. 

Silently she vowed to take more time with him. She owed him her happiness of late, what with his Slytherin scheming and meddling to get the three of them together, and it was time she returned the trust and honour. 

It was nearly an hour before Draco snuck back in. Silently, he pressed his whole body along the length of hers, his knees nudging in behind hers, his hips against hers, his chest against her back, his nose at the nape of her neck, buried in a mass of curls, and he draped his arm over her waist, pulling himself flush with her body. He smelled faintly of sage and thyme, of his shampoo, and his hair was damp.

She reached for his hand and wordlessly stroked his long fingers, just letting her touch play over his knuckles. Incrementally, she felt the tension bleeding out of him, and after another half an hour or so, his breathing steadied and she guessed he’d fallen asleep. At some point long before then, Theo had sunk into a deeper sleep, with one arm under the pillow and his other still holding hers as he snored faintly. 

Tangled up between the two of them, she felt at the centre of the universe.


	22. Halcyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione enjoys her Sunday with the boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. WOW. W O W. Your comments on the last few chapters left me absolutely stunned! And a few of you even popped over to Tumblr and left me sweet, anonymous owls! Thank you!!! I never expected this story to get any traction, so to hear from you at all is wonderful, and to have you say such sweet things about the characters and story etc. is just... _*passes out* ___
> 
> __Cashmere's venomous tentacula has taken over now because they've passed out. Anyway, buckle up for 6895 words of sweet, saccharine, goofy fluffiness with a bit of smut at the end, folks! Not much plot, just a chilled out chapter. Cash and I both hope you enjoy it, and wish you a very Happy New Year (almost). As I (the tentacula) write these notes, I've got a tumbler of whisky in one tentacle and a couple of leftover pfeffernüsse from Christmas that I pinched out of Cashmere's stash of goodies. _*cheers!* _____

Hermione snuck out of the Slytherin Dungeons early the next morning after waking on her side, with Theo practically plastered to the entire length of her back and legs, and with her head pillowed on Draco’s shoulder. 

The weight of Theo’s arm slung across her waist had been one of the most unexpectedly grounding experiences of her entire life, and she hadn't been able to find it within herself to move — any more than just simply breathing — for a long time. Eventually, on glancing up, she found that Draco was actually awake, and he when he saw her blinking up at him, he began stroking her hair and pressing gentle, barely-there kisses to the crown of her head. At one point, Theo tugged her somehow even closer to him, his hardness evident even in his sleep, and she caught the quick, knowing smile on Draco’s lips. He was obviously more familiar with Theo’s morning habits than she was. 

“I should go,” she whispered regretfully, and he nodded his understanding, though none of them moved for another quarter of an hour at least. Hermione was rather proud of the way she managed to clamber out without either waking Theo or kneeing Draco in the nuts, and paused beside the bed to press a kiss onto Draco’s lips before she dressed properly and left. Draco’s silver gaze never strayed from her as she collected her clothes and pulled them on, and she tried not to preen under its intensity. 

“Say good morning to him for me when he wakes?” she murmured as she kissed him again and nodded at Theo.

Draco’s eyebrows danced playfully and she laughed under her breath. As usual, she hadn’t meant it that way, but she decided to roll with it anyway. 

“However you think he’ll like it best… I’ll see you later?”

He nodded. A lingering distance lurked in his features, but he watched her go with a fond light still gleaming in his silver eyes, and when she paused at the door, he was already shifting his hand beneath the covers, stroking Theo fully hard even while he slept on. God, if she didn’t go now, she never would, and she really didn’t fancy doing a walk of shame out into a bustling common room full of judgemental Slytherins. Otherwise she would definitely have remained behind to watch Draco work Theo’s cock while the other slept, gasping and moaning unabashedly…

Leaving was an absolute wrench. 

Ginny gave her a drowsy but feral grin when she snuck back into their dorm, having received the sternest and most disapproving glare imaginable from the Fat Lady, but Hermione just shook her head, sleep-ruffled curls bouncing. Ginny waggled her eyebrows and said quietly, “Good night?”

She nodded, hoping that the soft look in her face would dissuade the girl from teasing her too much. It must have worked because Ginny just flopped back into her pillows and mumbled something about Harry that Hermione was fairly sure she didn’t want to hear. The man was like a brother to her, and she didn’t want to think about what he and her friend got up to in their spare time. 

Five minutes or so later, as the water from the shower coursed over her, Hermione’s skin tingled, and not from the heat of the steam. Her magic was crackling again, and a thrumming warmth kindled to life between her thighs. 

It didn’t take her long to bring herself to orgasm in the shower — something she’d never done before and wasn’t entirely keen to repeat, given how shaky her legs felt afterwards, and how she’d nearly screeched like a mandrake when she’d wobbled into the cold tiles at one point. Oh to have Theo’s tall body buttressing up behind her, or Draco’s mouth between her legs, or… 

A faint echo of desire rolled through her that didn’t feel entirely like her own and she bit her lip, nipples hard and her breasts still aching. Whatever traces of a bond they had, it was cementing faster than she could ever have imagined if she could sense the intensity of their pleasure, even as a whisper, from that distance. That, or she was just really horny from lying between two gorgeous boys all night after watching them get each other off to her presence the previous evening. 

Disappointingly, neither of them was to be seen at breakfast when she emerged and headed down with Ginny, and she hoped it was simply because they were still completely wrapped up in each other and taking a well-earned lazy Sunday morning to themselves. Their wispy, gossamer-thin connection had faded again for now, so she couldn't tell how they were feeling or what they were up to. So far, it seemed to be triggered only by very strong emotions. 

Someone had left a Prophet on the tabletop, and she flicked idly through it, skimming a follow-up article to the one about the break-in at the muggle antique shop in Paris. She made a mental note to write to Harry about it — in a way that wouldn't get him into trouble for telling her about activity around the Lestrange mausoleum, of course. The two incidents couldn’t be  _ unrelated _ , surely, she scowled while peering down at the silly, cramped font of the newspaper article. It was a miracle she didn’t need reading glasses already. The thought that she might have been able to borrow Theo’s glasses crossed her mind, and her chest filled with fluttering doxy-wing jitters at the sheer implied domesticity of that. 

“Talk about putting the cart before the horse,” she muttered under her breath, turning the page and pretending to read about the quidditch results. 

As she sipped her coffee and still studiously avoided looking Ginny in the eye (because every time she did, Ginny would get that very ‘Weasley’, shit-eating grin on her face that made Hermione deeply wary, and reminded her of Fred and George in their troublemaking hay-day), she felt a faint sense of unease twinge inside her. It wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the other things she thought she’d felt through their connection, but it was enough to make her look reflexively over at the Slytherin table, despite knowing it was devoid of both Theo and Draco. As quickly as it had come, however, it was gone. 

Daphne caught her eye though and smiled, which she returned before finishing her breakfast and heading back up to the common room alone. She wished she’d made more concrete plans with the two of them before she’d snuck out of the Slytherin Dungeons, but undetected escape had been foremost on her mind. 

When, later that morning, neither of them appeared to be in the library either, she huffed and made her way to the prefects’ common room. It too was empty, though a roaring log fire was dancing gleefully in the grate. Eyeing it, she paused on the point of leaving the room to return to Gryffindor Tower and stew miserably, and decided instead to curl up with the book under her arm and finish her Ancient Runes translation there. 

An hour or so later, fingers raked unexpectedly through her hair and she jumped a mile, yipping in surprise and turning to find Theo standing behind the armchair. He looked soft and almost shy, hair a tousled riot of curls, white shirt untucked beneath his dark blue sweater. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t m-mmean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” she said, closing the book and sliding it onto a nearby coffee table. Looking more closely at him, she saw that the corners of his eyes were tight and his mouth was pressed into a hard line. “What’s wrong?”

He shrugged and bent down to kiss her over the back of the chair. 

Still frowning, she rose from her seat and barked, “Sit,” at him, which he dutifully did, folding his long body into the armchair and looking up at her with one raised eyebrow. When she eased herself straight down into his lap and let her legs dangle over one arm of the chair, he finally smiled, and then he slowly buried his face in her hair and pulled her close. 

Unbidden, her magic reached tentatively out for him, and the deep, still well of power inside him drew her in immediately. It was like sinking into a warm bath, and they both let out a long, slow breath. Theo’s hand played through her hair again before his thumb found her cheek and he brushed a gentle arc across her cheekbone. 

“What’s going on, Theo?” she finally asked. 

“Dr-Drake’s still in a funk,” he said. “I think l-last night really shook him. It w-was o-one of the bad ones.”

“You mean his nightmare?”

Theo nodded but didn't say any more. 

“Where is he?” 

He licked his lips. “He went down to the qu-qu… to the qu-qu…” the word died at the back of his throat and he growled. “To the pitch,” he finished. “C-Couple of hours of flying usually ssssorts him out.” His head nodded a little on the stuttered consonants. 

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, and to her surprise, Theo chuckled, the sound low and warm in her ear. He hadn’t drawn back to speak to her.

He brought the flat of his large hand to her chest and pressed his palm against her heart. “In-Intuition?” he shrugged. 

“You could tell where I was?” she asked, as much intrigued as she was pleased. 

He shook his head, still with his nose buried in her curls. “Not like a tr-tracking spell, just…” He twitched his shoulder again, jostling her slightly. The warm weight of him behind her was glorious, and she leaned into him a little more, trying not to snuggle like a cat beside a fire and definitely failing. “I just set out and ended up here. With you.”

They stayed like that for a long time before either of them spoke up again. 

It was Theo who broke the silence, kissing the side of her head and leaning back a little. “What did I disturb you from?” he asked, eyes darting to the muggle notepad she’d been using to scribble down her rough translation. 

“Runes,” she murmured, half in a stupor from the heat of the fire. The delicious closeness of Theo’s body, and the movement of his hands quietly combing through her hair and across her hips from time to time had definitely not helped matters much. 

“That the assignment due on W-Wednesday?” he asked and she nodded. 

“Nearly done with it,” she said, failing to stifle a jaw-popping yawn. He was still tense, despite how much he seemed to be enjoying their relaxed closeness. “Theo?” she added and he hummed softly in her ear. “Listen, what you told me last night after Draco left… it got me thinking.”

She could practically hear his eyes rolling, but to his credit, he kept quiet and let her talk. 

“It made me think about what you said to me on that night the three of us came back from Hagrid’s together.”

“Oh?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious now. 

She shuffled slightly and tipped her head back to look up at him. He looked especially beautiful in the firelight, all golden freckles and sparkling blue eyes, his entire, undiluted focus on her. She’d meant it when she’d said he could be intense and serious. 

“You told me… You told me that I didn’t have to take everything on by myself.” 

She watched his throat work, that sharply-pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, and a knowing, lopsided smile crept onto his face. It brought out a dimple that made her stomach swoop. She pressed her thumb briefly against the indentation of it in his cheek, which made his smile widen into something self-conscious and sweet, and she kissed him. He hummed again, taken a little by surprise, and then kissed her back. Although it was chaste enough, they both moaned a little, Theo’s eyes fluttering closed for a moment. 

When they parted, she continued. “I just wanted you to know that… Well, you don’t have to be responsible for me and Draco all the time too. I can feel how you’re still worried about him,” she said, placing her palm on his chest this time, where his heartbeat rabbited in his ribcage. “And you said yourself when we were talking in the cloisters… that you knew it had to be you to bring us together… You… You don’t have to carry all this and keep us all together by yourself, you know? I’m not going anywhere, and I’m pretty certain Draco is glued to you for life…”

His eyes turned glassy, his pupils huge in the cosy, fire-lit room, and he swallowed again. “Hermione,” he rasped, but he said nothing else. He just kissed her and then drew back, letting the back of his head rest on the upholstered armchair. 

Hermione watched him for a while and then inhaled. “Let’s go find Draco,” she said, and he blinked a few times as if he’d been lost in his thoughts. He nodded and helped her up with a steadying hand, rising after her and, as if they were dancing, tugging her back into his arms to kiss her again. 

“Thank you,” he said. “I… I have a t-tendency to, uh…”

“Put other people before yourself too much?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You practically said it yourself: it takes one to know one, Theo,” she smiled, sliding her fingers briefly into his. “Let me go and grab a coat from Gryffindor Tower and I’ll meet you in the Entrance Hall?”

“I’ll c-come with you,” he said. “Not into the Tower, but I bet that portrait would love to see me again.”

Hermione snorted indelicately, scooping up her books and pencil case and following him to the door, which he now held open for her. “Oh sure,” she drawled, resting one hand fleetingly against his stomach as she slipped through the doorway beside him. The soft weave of his navy blue, woollen jumper felt warm and inviting beneath her fingertips. “The Fat Lady just loves boys from other houses loitering outside the Tower doorway…”

He smirked at her, and they headed out. 

Theo’s mood did seem to have lifted a little, and she was pleased to see that the set of his jaw and shoulders wasn’t quite so tense as they wound their way up the corridors and staircases of the castle. 

The Fat Lady did indeed greet Theo with unparallelled disdain, but Hermione just laughed and said she’d be out in a minute.

To her disgruntlement, the only scarf she could seem to find was a truly horrible example of Molly Weasley’s handiwork from last Christmas. This particular monstrosity bore a pattern that was supposed to show orange cats on a maroon background, but honestly they looked either like potatoes or little round turds, depending on which part of the scarf you happened to look at, and she didn’t feel quite comfortable enough in their relationship to show him that just yet, so she went without. 

Theo was pacing again when she stepped through the portrait, his hands in his pockets, his head down, heels scuffing idly along the stonework. He looked around at her approach and smiled, shoulders dropping visibly again. 

“All set?” he asked and she nodded, sliding her fingers into his pocket and along his warm palm, the gesture making his lips twitch into a fond smile. 

They paused outside the Slytherin Dungeons, roles reversed while Theo ducked in to get a coat for himself, and Hermione soon found herself joined by Ernie, who appeared out of a corridor that led eventually to the entrance of the Hufflepuff common room. He and Daphne had apparently been spotted kissing at the Halloween Ball, and rumour had it they were seeing each other too, though they’d been a heck of a lot more subtle about it than Hermione and her two Slytherins had. 

“So… uh…” Ernie asked, scratching the back of his head after a few minutes of good-natured smalltalk. “Can I ask you something that’s… uh… kind of super personal?” 

She frowned, but nodded. They had moved across the hall to stand in the archway to the castle entrance, gazing out at the landscape beyond which was veiled that morning in a thick, cloying mist. She couldn’t even see the path that led down to Hagrid’s hut from the top step. “Sure,” she said.

“So…” he swallowed, laughed nervously, and then forged ahead. “So Daph — Daphne Greengrass, that is — and I… um… we’re kind of… you know… uh… a thing? But… we haven’t really told anyone yet.”

“I figured,” she said gently and he twitched around to look at her with wide, anxious eyes. 

“You did? Oh hell, do you think everyone knows?”

She shook her head, curls bouncing everywhere. “No. I just… suspected, that’s all. You seemed interested in her back at the bonfire for Fang’s birthday.” She waited for him to ask whatever it was that was really on his mind. 

“So… You and… Malfoy… and… and Nott, you’re… like…” he drew in a huge breath, held it and then blurted, “You’re all together, right?”

“Mmhmm,” she said evenly. 

“So… has… have you… I mean… has anyone said anything about it to you?”

Hermione scowled, feeling a defensive heat kindling in her chest. If people were talking about them, she’d prefer they did it to her face. “Like what?”

“Oh… just…” he flushed crimson and stared out at the grounds, unable to meet her eye. “About being with a Slytherin… or… two…”

“Which house someone is in should have no bearing on a relationship,” she growled. 

“I know that,” he said quickly. “It’s just… Daph seems… worried. She doesn’t want… She thinks… Oh, I don't know, but if no one has said anything about you being with Malfoy, then… surely they wouldn't care about me and Daphne, right?”

“Ernie,” she said, turning to face him. “I don't understand. Are you saying  _ she’s  _ ashamed to be seen with  _ you _ ? Or that she thinks  _ you’ll  _ get flack for being with a  _ Slytherin _ ? Because either one of those is utter bollocks…”

He swallowed. “The latter,” he admitted, cheeks pink. “I was hoping… Since you’re friends with her and all, that you could maybe talk to her? Tell her I’m fine with it — more than fine with it. I think she’s wonderful…”

“Ernie, it should really come from you,” she said. She was not qualified for this kind of thing. At all. Romilda Vane was the kind of person who should have been dishing out dating advice, not her. 

“I’ve tried, but she just keeps saying she’d rather keep it low-key for now.”

Hermione took a deep breath and caught a movement in the shadows of the Entrance Hall out of the corner of her eye. Theo was standing a little way off, hands back in his pockets, watching them with a quietly interested expression on his face. 

“Ernie,” she said. “… If it comes up, I’ll mention it to her if you like, but I don't know her all that well. I like her a lot, but I don't know how well she’ll take it. Ok?”

“Thanks,” he sighed, all the air and tension leaving him in a rush. He turned, found Theo watching them from a little way off, flushed a worrying shade of beetroot, and scuttled away. 

Theo watched him go and then approached her. “What was that all about?”

She sighed. “Somehow I’ve become the go-to agony aunt for advice on dating Slytherins…”

Theo’s bark of laughter echoed around the entrance hall and he put his hand on the small of her back, steering her down the stairs and into the mist. “As long as he’s not giving you shit about it.”

“No,” she said. “It’s actually  _ Daphne  _ who’s worried about  _ his  _ reputation, which is actually pretty sad if you ask me. She’s wonderful - why wouldn’t anyone want to date her?”

Theo just hummed pensively and nodded. 

After a few minutes of walking, Hermione shivered and burrowed down into the collar of her coat. When Theo saw what she was doing, he let go of her hand and unwound the green and silver scarf from his neck. “Here,” he said. 

“It’s fine,” she chirped automatically, but the stubborn Slytherin brooked no argument and wound the thing around her neck and lower face anyway, trapping all her hair underneath it and making her wriggle and squirm. Laughing, she pulled her thick mane free and adjusted the scarf, nuzzling into it. It smelled like him, and she breathed deeply for a moment before looking up at him. “Thanks.”

“Suits you,” he said offhandedly, though the way his eyes were blown dark gave him away. 

“You like me in green then, do you?” she asked coyly. Maybe she should ask Daphne if she could borrow a green dress for the Yule Ball? Talk about making a statement. 

The heat in his blue eyes when he looked back at her hit her like a bombarda. “Yes. I think I like you wearing my clothes,” he said. 

She laughed, they paused on the path to kiss, twice, and then finally disentangled themselves long enough to make their way safely down to the quidditch pitch.

They chatted a little here and there, but when they got to the stands, they fell quiet and tilted their faces upwards, listening. The stands were eerily silent without the cheering crowds from the day before or the flap of banners in the wind, and she was reminded viscerally of the approach of dementors, what with the creeping cold of the fog and the silence pressing in on all sides. All she could hear was her own heartbeat.

“What if he’s fallen off or had an accident?” she asked, looking sharply up at Theo. “Merlin, I can hardly see my own hand in front of my face in all this fog! Theo, you should never have let him come out on his own like this! What if —”

Theo twitched his fingers where he was holding her hand and nodded down the pitch. There the mist swirled into a spiral and a soft whooshing disturbed the oppressive quiet as a figure on a broom plunged down through the fog and disappeared back up again into a huge climb, green cloak trailing behind. Hermione’s knees sagged with relief and she puffed out her cheeks with a sigh. 

Theo put the middle-finger and thumb of his left hand to his lips and gave an earsplitting whistle - the kind that Hagrid used to summon Fang from a great distance - and looked down at her. “Five, four, three, two —” he murmured without breaking eye contact, and on ‘one’ Draco blasted out of the mist again and stepped off his broom about a yard in front of them on the short turf. 

“Theo?” he asked, sounding slightly out of breath, and then he looked to Hermione and uttered her name too. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” she said, very much aware of the slight tremor in her voice. She really, really hated quidditch. 

“Hermione was worried you’d c-come off your broom in all this weather,” Theo said lightly and she thumped him in the chest for giving her up like that. He just grinned down at her and she shook her head. 

“Well, can you blame me?” she asked Draco, who was regarding her with an odd expression on his face. The apples of his cheeks were pink from the cold and his hair was an attractive, tousled mess of white waves. She dropped traitorous Theo’s hand and stepped over to him. 

Draco watched her approach without moving, hardly daring to breathe, and when she stood so close she had to crane her neck to look up at him, she brought her left hand to his right cheek. Without moving anything else, his eyelashes fluttered down and he let out a ragged breath as her warm palm pressed against his frozen skin. That was always how she expected him to feel, her prince of ice, and the contrast between the heat of him the previous night was marked. He tilted his head into the contact a moment later, and she popped up on tiptoes to kiss the very tip of his chilly nose, surprising him. 

His eyes flew open and he smiled, then slid one hand around her waist, drawing her close. His other still held his broomstick to one side. 

At the addition of another hand against the small of her back, she broke their kiss and glanced back over her shoulder to watch Theo regarding Draco with dark eyes. “No kiss for me?” he purred, voice low and inviting. 

“You had plenty this morning,” Draco groused dismissively before returning his attention fully to kissing Hermione. 

“You didn’t seem to be complaining,” Theo said conversationally. “You missed a real show, love.”

“I bet I did,” she laughed, biting Draco’s lips gently between her teeth and drawing a broken moan from him. “How much longer do you think you’ll be out here?” she asked, eyeing his broomstick when she drew back again. 

Draco blinked, looking more than a little stunned. “I’m pretty much done anyway,” he smiled. “Why? You want a go?”

She rolled her eyes and hoped to mask a little of the true horror she felt at the thought of getting on a broomstick again. “No chance. And because I want to spend time with you, silly,” she said. He quirked an eyebrow and she added, “Plus, I need your help with that potions sheet for tomorrow. I forgot about it until this morning.”

A slow, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of Draco’s pretty mouth, and his eyes flashed. “Hermione Granger, asking to copy my homework?”

“Absolutely not! That would be cheating!” she gasped, rising to his bait before she’d even realised what he was doing. “Oh, you’re horrible,” she growled, but when he kissed her, she kissed him back. 

“I’ll meet you in the library?” he said. “I should get changed.”

“Not on our account,” Theo said, eyeing him up and down ostentatiously. “You look so delicious in your qu-quidditch kit, love.”

Draco’s eyes drifted to Hermione, as if for permission, and she shrugged. “He does have a point, Draco,” she said. “I’m not going to complain if you stay in that, but I’m not sure how much work I’ll get done.”

“I’ll dump my broom in the Dungeons and we can go up together,” he said. 

In the end, they split at the Slytherin Dungeons and decided to meet in the library when they all had their books. Hermione only realised when she’d returned to her dorm that she still had Theo’s scarf around her neck, and decided to keep it on. 

Neville and Hannah had just stepped into the common room together when she came down again, and she smiled at them. Hannah looked oddly guilty at being there, so Hermione stayed a little while to chat with them to try and make her feel welcome.

“You coming back for the Yule Ball, Hermione?” Hannah asked, nursing a cup of hot chocolate that Neville had evidently made for her. 

“To be honest, I haven’t really thought about it much,” she said. “Probably though. Are you?”

Hannah nodded and grinned. “I’m so glad McGonagall’s putting it on again this year. I bet it’ll be even more spectacular than the last one for the Tournament!”

“Probably,” she smiled. “I wonder how they’ll decorate it this time? No doubt Professor Flitwick will have some new enchantments up his sleeves.” Her heart leapt at the thought of learning them, even if they were just for show.

“Are you going to go with Theo and… Draco?” Hannah asked, stumbling audibly on Draco’s name and eyeing the Slytherin scarf around her neck as if it were a deadly python. 

She shrugged. “If I do go, I’ll definitely go with them.”

“Isn’t it weird though?” she asked cheeks flushing. “Being with both of them, I mean?”

Hermione shook her head and smiled. “No. But I can see why you’d think that. I thought it was too, before we worked it all out. Now it just feels… natural. Speaking of, I’m supposed to be meeting them in the library. I should get going.”

As she rose and left, she caught snatches of Neville and Hannah’s hushed mutterings before the portrait closed. “…believe it! With Malfoy of all people…”

“…think she’s been Imperiused?”

“McGonagall would never let that happen…”

Her feet stalled as the portrait clicked shut, and she briefly considered going back in, but as she inhaled deeply, she smelled Theo’s scent on the scarf and let it wash through her, calming her. Was this was Daphne was trying to protect Ernie from? Screw them. Screw the lot of them with an enormous, angry blast-ended skrewt. This was her life; she finally had something that was just for her, and she was not about to let anyone take it away. 

She marched up to the library and let the doors slam shut behind her. The books whispered in consternation at the noise, the sound rippling around the room like so many hissing cats, but she ignored it and stalked past the odd set of studying students to the back where she was fairly certain she’d find Theo and Draco. She wondered fleetingly if they’d be in a similar position to the one she’d found them in before on her birthday, but they were seated opposite each other at a large table in an airy alcove between two bookshelves. Draco’s right hand reached across the table to sit in Theo’s left, and they both had their books open, sitting quietly and reading. 

Her heart melted and they looked up at her as one. 

It was Draco who spotted the strained look in her eyes first, but she just smiled and shook her head, unravelling Theo’s scarf before she sat and pushing it across the table towards him. No need to bother them with all that now. She kissed the crown of Draco’s silvery head as she passed behind him and took the space on his right.

“Aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes?” she said instead, eyeing their still-linked fingers. Theo just grinned while Draco actually blushed. 

“You want to go over that potions sheet now?” Draco asked once she was settled. 

She peeked at the book he was reading and shook her head. “You finish that first. Potions can wait.”

For an hour they worked on their homework in silence, though every now and again Theo would bring Draco’s knuckles to his lips and kiss them absentmindedly. Draco never looked up, but he would occasionally stroke his thumb over Theo’s in response, and from time to time he would rest his right palm on Hermione’s thigh. The heat of it seared through her jeans like a brand, and she found it exponentially harder to concentrate. 

God, it was so domestic - she thought her heart might just explode. 

When she actually did make a little squeak at the back of her throat, Theo flashed her a curious frown. 

“I can’t take it any more,” she laughed, flopping back in her chair. “You’re disgusting. The pair of you. It’s… It’s…” and she dissolved into giggles. “How did I not notice you were together for so long?”

“Because Draco is a shy little bean about public displays of affection?” Theo asked, staring straight at Draco, whose cheeks reddened again under the scrutiny. 

“Personally, I'm grateful he’s not an exhibitionist,” she laughed. “Means I get you all to myself.” She paused and added, “Thats a ‘you plural’, by the way.”

Theo raised an eyebrow and looked around them ostentatiously, as if looking for eavesdroppers. “You do remember what happened last time all three of us were in here at the same time, don’t you?” he said in a conspiratorial stage whisper that made her flush and sent heat rushing to her core.

“Not forgetting that in a hurry,  _ love _ ,” she said pointedly and he barked a laugh. 

From somewhere in the depths of the shelves, someone had the audacity to shush them, and he waggled his eyebrows. Theo leaned on his elbows across the table and hissed, “We could try a repeat, but with you actually involved this time…”

She rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the suggestion, but her potions sheet became considerably harder to focus on with Malfoy nipping at her earlobe instead of helping her out, lifting aside her curtain of hair and kissing down the curve of her neck, and touching her thigh with his left hand while toying with her hair in his right. He’d completely abandoned his own work in favour of teasing her, and she couldn’t find it within herself to be even a smidgen cross with him for it. 

With a shudder, she set her biro down at the end of the sheet and turned to him. “You think I’ll pass it?” she asked breathlessly. 

“Mmhnn,” Draco hummed in her ear. 

“You haven't even looked at it!” she hissed. 

Draco laughed and bit gently down on her pulse point, making her whole body go taut, back arching in the chair. “‘Course you’ll pass it,” he growled. 

When she shot a look over at Theo, she found him staring intently at them, jaw soft, eyes dark. She smiled shyly at him and he mirrored the gesture before taking out his wand. He murmured a charm and she felt the boundary of it crackle down around them. Draco sucked in a short breath at the same time as she felt Theo’s magic mingle slightly with hers. 

“All good?” Draco asked and Theo nodded. 

Draco pulled Hermione’s chair a little way back from the table and let his fingers play just under the hem of her jumper. His touch was almost shy, and there was a hint of awestruck reverence there that she’d noted the previous night too, like he didn’t yet believe he was allowed to touch her. 

“Draco, please,” she whispered. 

“What do you want?” he asked and the question sent a thrill right through her. What did she want beyond the abstract? 

“Make me come?” she asked, feeling bolder than she ever had before. This was a library, after all. 

Draco’s eyes closed and he sank his teeth into his lower lip, moaning. “Granger…” With his left hand, he undid the button of her jeans and with his right, he slid his palm up her body to cup her breast through her bra. “By Morgana,” he cursed, “You’re perfect, Granger…”

She bucked as he brushed his thumb against her nipple between the cup of her bra and the sensitive skin of her breast, and then looked over at Theo. 

“He’s right, love,” Theo said, sounding hoarse. “You are exquisite.”

Writhing beneath both the praise and the fact that Draco’s fingers were now beneath her underwear, his middle finger just teasing the soft skin just above her clit, Hermione began to pant. “God, I never imagined I’d be doing this here,” she breathed, cheeks flushed with a mix of pleasure and embarrassment. “You sure those wards will keep —  _ oh _ , Draco!” she gasped as Draco’s fingertip grazed her clit on its way further down. 

He froze. “Granger, you’re soaked already,” he breathed against her skin, teeth raking over her neck before he growled and sucked a possessive bruise into the side of her throat that made her lurch and cry out with pleasure. She was going to need that scarf back. “Fuck…” 

His breathing turned ragged, but he focused all his attention on her, starting with small circles around her swollen clit, then further down to tease her slick folds and finally, when she was shuddering and clutching at his neck and shoulders with both hands, he sank two fingers inside her and crooked them. 

“You’re perfect, Granger,” he crooned again, his thumb pressing against the underside of her clit hard enough to draw a broken howl from her. On the other side of the table, watching with the steady intensity of an owl, Theo had taken himself in his hand and was stroking his cock while he stared at them. 

When Draco saw her watching him, he smirked. “She’s glorious, Theo,” he said. “Tight, wet, perfect… Can’t wait to sink my cock into her…” he added, looking back at her to gauge how welcome that last suggestion was. He needn’t have looked at all. Hermione clenched around him and let out another moan, head now thrown back, hips arching into his hand, fingers clutching at the arms of the chair. 

It had never felt like this; not alone, not with Krum, and certainly not with Ron. 

With his long fingers buried inside her to the knuckle, stroking her inner walls with a merciless intensity, and the constant contact of his thumb on her clit, she thought she was going to shatter and rip apart at any moment. It was so deep, so intense, so perfect, she wanted to cry and laugh and scream all at once. 

“Draco!” she sobbed when he circled his thumb around the hood of her clit. “Oh God…”

“Can’t wait to taste you too,” he purred, crooking his fingertips again in a way that made her buck and jerk. “Get my mouth on you while I’ve got my fingers in you…”

“Dra-Draco!” 

The intensity of it was going to kill her. She was going to die in the library, and Draco Malfoy was going to do it with his fingers deep inside her, and that silky, drawling voice in her ear. It was a fitting enough death, she supposed distantly. 

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he growled. “Merlin, I can feel it. Theo, she’s going to come… I’m going to make her come. Granger’s going to come right here in the library with you watching her and me inside her…”

“Holy shit,” Theo choked before his abs clenched and he curled forwards in the chair, body convulsing as he spilled into his hand with a cut-off grunt. 

The sight of Theo coming while staring at her and Draco was enough to set her whole nervous system on fire. Theo’s magic sparked and flared suddenly, reaching out for hers at the same time as she felt the cooler, slightly more controlled press of Draco’s sliding against hers, and she let them both in just as he picked up the pace of his fingers and thumb and tipped her over the edge by kissing her mouth to smother the sound she made when she shattered. 

Her vision went white.

Waves of magic and euphoria coursed through her as she came around his fingers, and he kept his thumb pressed tight against her clit while she pulsed and rocked against him over and over. When it finally began to subside, she slumped back in the chair and opened her eyes, still breathing hard. Draco was still seated in the chair beside her, only he now had his head bowed and his spine had curled forwards, his fingertips still pressing against her inner walls. 

“Draco?”

From across the table, she heard Theo laughing softly, and turned to look at him, her movements sluggish and oddly discontented. “He just came his brains out, love, give him a minute.”

Her eyes went wide. “He… but…?”

“Your magic was qu-quite something just then… Right Drake?”

“Mmnmph,” he grunted, pushing himself upright. His cheeks were stained with that glorious, blotchy pink that he only seemed to get when he was aroused, and his silver eyes were glassy and dark. “Fuck me, Granger, that really was something else.”

“Getting me off made you come too?” she asked, moaning slightly as he withdrew his fingers. 

“Mmm,” he nodded, and then made her hot all over again by licking them clean. He picked up his wand from the table and cast a quick scourgify on himself, looking a lot more comfortable afterwards. “Let’s try not to make a habit of it,” he drawled. “I don’t intend to come untouched in my underwear like a pubescent boy every time I’m near you, Granger…”

She laughed loudly at that and looked at Theo, who also looked a bit thunderstruck. 

“For the record,” she said to Draco, who was now sitting with his chin pillowed on his hand, elbow on the wood of the table, regarding her sidelong, “That was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that in the library.”

Draco raised one eyebrow slowly and Theo snickered, “You’ve t-taken her library virginity, Draco!”

They shared another laugh, and none of them got any more work done before leaving for supper, hours later, having nattered on through lunch without realising it. They wiled away the afternoon talking and laughing behind the continued privacy of Theo’s charm until Hermione’s stomach growled and Draco stood and stretched. 

He really did look fantastic in his quidditch gear, and it was almost enough to tempt her to start another round. 

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will probably be my final update of 2020, but fear not! There will be more in 2021! Featuring: Plot! Smut! Fluff! Angst! The Yule Ball! And much more!   
> Take care, lovelies!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [coffeestainsandcashmere](https://coffeestainsandcashmere.tumblr.com//).


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